


The Ugly Fledgling

by VileniaVeladorn



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alpha Fleur Delacour - Freeform, Alpha Ginny Weasley, Alpha Hermione Granger, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Creature Fic, F/F, Forced Bonding, Multi, Omega Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Omega Harry Potter, Omega Narcissa Black Malfoy, Omega Ron Weasley
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-27
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 37,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26133130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VileniaVeladorn/pseuds/VileniaVeladorn
Summary: 4th year, the year everything changed for Hermione Granger. The year she learns secrets from her past that affect her present and her future, but along the way finds far more than she ever hoped to find.
Relationships: Andromeda Black Tonks/Original Female Character(s), Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger, Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Hermione Granger/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Black Malfoy, Padma Patil & Original Character(s), Parvati Patil/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 84
Kudos: 507





	1. The Quidditch World Cup

**Author's Note:**

> **Veela speech**   
>  _french speech_
> 
> Hello all, this work grew out of a prompt discussion in the Bellamione Coven and took on a life of it's own. This is a planned multi-chapter fic, although at this time there is no set posting schedule.

# 

Quidditch World Cup

Harry, Ron and Ginerva trudged through the field following the rest of the Weasley Family as they headed for the family campsite.

"O! Harry, have you heard from Hermione? She said she would meet us before the term. I was hoping to get her to come to the World Cup Finals with us." Ron all but whined out which earned a smack to the back of the head from Ginerva.

Harry shook his head, ever since Ron presented earlier this year he was even more clingy and whiny. Harry wasn't sure he knew how to help his friend, he really hoped Hermione would get back to them soon, she was always the one with the answers.

A loud animalistic growl echoed across the campsite, causing heads to turn toward the sound. Ginny pulled Ron and Harry toward the sound, and when they managed to get through the crowd to see what was going on, they were shocked to see a young blonde girl about 8 being pushed behind a girl around their age with wild bushy chestnut hair. The girl around their age was growling at a full grown Bulgarian Veela in a protective stance in front of the younger girl.

"Blimey, that's Hermione!" Ron called out, ignoring the situation and trying to run to Hermione before Ginny tripped him up.

"Are you trying to get yourself killed Ronald?" Ginny yelled at her brother.

"But..but..Hermione needs me!" Ron exploded, jumping back to his feet and getting in Ginny's face as his temper got the best of him. 

The comotion having attracted the attention of the rest of the Weasley Family, with the twins, Fred and George, the first to arrive on the scene. "Now, now, Ronniekins, no need to get your panties in a wad, it does not appear that our little bird needs any help." The twins spoke in unison with their trademark smirks.

Ron, still fuming, turned back to see Hermione still growling aggressively at the Veela, her hands encased in pale flickering bluish-purple fire. The adult Veela backed by her fellow mascots was not backing down, she too had fireballs in her palms.

The stand-off only ended when several women in robes of various designs and shades of blue arrived. 

"What do you think you are doing, threatening a little girl!" One of the newcomers seethed out to the mascot, as she turned to face the gathered Bulgarian Veela directly, while a couple of the others checked on the two girls. The rest of the group support the blonde leader in facing the Bulgarian Veela. 

"You are safe now, calm down now, youngling, your flockmate is safe, you defended the hatchling." An older blonde knelt down and tried to coax Hermione down. But the teen still glared aggressively at the older Veela mascot. 

The first let out a loud shrilling cry, "are you sure you are willing to risk a fight and possible war over whatever happened? I assure you, you are vastly outnumbered." She finished with a smile and incline of her head. 

The bulgarian Veela snorts, "there are only 5 of you! We have 30 or more! We will feast on your marrow!" She growls out before a trilling call echoes in the air and nearly 100 blue clad Veela step out as one to surround the bulgarian contingent. The trouble causing Veela pales and looks around before schoffing out in a bluff "Figures the French have no honor." With that she turns and leaves taking the Bulgarian Veela with her. 

The French Veela watch them until they disappear back to the Bulgarian area.

"How is she Appoline?" The lead Veela asked in french.

Appoline shook her head, "she is running on instinct right now, we should not leave her alone. She was magnificent protecting Gabrielle though, Penthesilea." As she fussed over her youngest and Hermione. 

Hermione looked up at Penthesilea and said in perfect french, no hint of an accent to be heard. "That one thought it would be funny if the Bulgarian Veela had a mascot of their own and thought Gaberelle would be perfect to be their little toy. I took exception to that." She said in a huff. Though with the other Veela now gone and the flock around, Hermione started to calm down.

With the situation seemingly resolved, Ron, without thinking as usual, ran over to Hermione to hug his girl, at least in his mind. Hermione snarled at him, grabbed his arm as Ron faltered in shock before flipping him over and promptly sat on his legs with her hands poised to beat him to a pulp. Fortunately the others were quick to the rescue, the French Veela physically pulling Hermione off Ron and working to calm her down. 

Penthesilea helped Ron back to his feet, catching his scent and nodding knowingly. "I am zorry, she iz running on instinct at the moment. Ze umm incident iz too fresh for her to fully relax." She spoke in broken heavily accented English.

Arthur Weasley stepped up and guided Ron back to Molly Weasley. "Well we were hoping Hermione would join us to watch the game. We are family after all." He finished lamely.

"Non, I am afraid she haz too much on...", Penthesilea snapped her fingers as she as she worked to think of the word, "ahh her mind, anything could set her off right now, besides she has an invite to sit with the Delacours for thiz event." Penthesilea spoke with finality. Appoline was guiding Hermione and Gabrielle back towards a few of the other Veela. "She will see you all at Hogwarts, I hope the match is enjoyable." 

Ron went to follow, sputtering out, "but...but..she is mine to protect." Ron was stopped by the twins hands on his shoulders and before he could toss them off, another witch was in his face snarling, this one was around 17 with long silvery blonde hair. "Monsour, 'Ermione, has never needed someone to protect er!" 

"Fleur! You are scaring ze poor boy he haz gotten the point. Oui?" Appoline admonished the young woman while looking directly at Ron while pulling Fleur back, as Harry and the twins pulled Ron away before the situation could get worse.

"Let it go mate, she is in good hands it seems." Harry commented as Mr Weasley corraled everyone back toward their campsite.

As the french delegation lead made their way towards their box seats, the group was passed by a small family of blondes and the scent of vanilla and daisies as the blondes passed them, causing both Hermione and Fleur to turn and follow the group with their eyes, inhaling deeply as Hermione spirals into memories.

[Flashback to France]

_a 1 year old Hermione squirmed in her mamans arms as she spoke with a pair of women._

_"Isabella, the flock can take care of her and raise her safely, there is no need to give her others to raise. Surely she will be safer with the flock around her."_

_Isabella Beauchamp-Delcour looked at her wife, Marie Delacour and her Mother-in-law Anionette Delacour. "Non, ze Malfoys and ze Lestrange families have both promised reprisals for us turning the flocks against this puffed up Lord of theirs. I want nothing more than to let her grow up in the flock, but I will not risk the flock now that we have merged the Beauchamp and Delacour lines. If something were to happen and we were lost, it would fracture the flock and could lead to the flock tearing itself apart with infighting. We can not allow that to happen" Isabella replied as she gestured between herself and Marie to indicate the we she was talking about._

_With a sigh she continued, "Anionette, Marie and I have discussed this at length, we are going to put her with a squib couple, who will have an urge to spend summers in Marseille, this way she can still be around the flock for training but no one will look for a missing french veela fledgling with an English muggle couple."_

Hermione grabbed her head as she hissed out in pain and ended up leaning against the blonde next to her. Fleur, whose presence brought her some comfort as the french Veela helped guide her up to the box the group was in. Fleur sat by Hermione, doting on her the whole match and generally making Hermione feel special and loved.

As Hermione tried to focus on the Quidditch match, Fleur was leaning over to speak with her mother Apolline and her grandmother Anionette. 

_"I think the blocks are crumbling._ Fleur whispered quietly. Anionette and Apolline exchanged a look, _"That should be impossible unless.."_ Apolline trailed off as Anionette continued her thought. _"Unless she caught the scent of a mate, she is of age to present afterall. Fleur, did anyone seem to trigger a response or did you smell any strong pleasing scents?"_

Fleur pondered a moment, _"The blonde trio, i smelled vanilla and daisies when they passed us, I also believe Hermione also smelled it, she had her episode just afterwards._ Fleur supplied as she checked on Hermione while the other two had their own short discussion. 

**"Fleur"** Anionette, her grandmere called to get her attention. **"It would seem to be the boy around your ages. It is a good thing you will be at hogwarts next year for the Tournament, this will give you a chance to investigate if it was indeed the boy you scented."**

**Fleur nodded in agreement before turning back to Hermione and watching as Victor Krum caught the snitch to end the match with the Irish Team the overall winners.**


	2. Return to Hogwarts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to return to hogwarts for the start of the trio's 4th year.
> 
> Many thanks to the wonderful [Bozie_Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozie_Quinn/pseuds/Bozie_Quinn), who helped with the inspiration for much of this chapter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we have Chapter 2 posted. Now there is a trigger warning in this chapter for domestic abuse and rape. I personally do not condone either activity, as an author I felt it was needed to further the story. 
> 
> I almost forgot to mention, some of the text in this chapter comes straight from the Goblet of Fire book. I do not own anything Harry Potter related outside the plot for this story.

***Trigger warning for domestic abuse and self harm***

# 

A return to Hogwarts

**Death Eaters? at Quidditch World Cup  
By Rita Skeeter**  
_After the Irish National Team brought the Quidditch World Cup back to the United Kingdom, the celebrations were interrupted by a group of ruffians dressed as Death Eaters causing havoc and spreading fear. After causing untold property damage and mass panic, another party cast the Dark Mark into the air. This reporter has learned that the mark was cast by the wand that had been stolen for nefarious purposes. The owner of the wand was able to verify under Veritaserum they did not know what happened to their wand. It is the opinion of this reporter that disgruntled bulgarian fans stole the wand when they realized not even star Viktor Krum would be able to save the match and used these tactics to cover up their team's loss.  
For more details see page 10 for the Daily Prophets detailed coverage of the Quidditch World Cup._

Narcissa Malfoy had no warning as the paper landed on the table as a vicious backhand sent her to the floor with a bleeding lip. Next hexes landed on her naked unprotected body. "Who did you talk to bitch?" Lucius screamed at her as his wand turned into a whip and he slashed her back adding to the scars and whip marks there. He never gave Narcissa a chance to respond to his questions before he was relieving himself in her arse. Once his business was done, Lucius snarled out, "get out of my sight you useless omega and don't bother healing. Maybe this time you will learn not to go against your master." Lucius cruelly used the mating bite to force Narcissa to feel pain from his anger. He snorted as he watched Narcissa crawl from the room with his cum dribbling from her bloody holes. His omega whore wasn't allowed clothing at home, she was available to all his business associates.

The Floo in the room flared to life with green flames as Lucius fixed himself as Avery, Nott and Mcnair strode out of the fireplace. McNair spoke up, "well that wasn't the story I was expecting in the Daily Prophet. Who knew Skitter would grow a backbone and nor run the Story we wanted." 

"Gentlemen, we will just have to remind Rita who truly has the power." Lucius replied with an evil smirk. 

"Oi! Lucius you missed a spot." Avery pointed out a small blood smear on Lucius's shirt and the blood still staining the floor mixed with his ejaculation. 

Lucius gave the men his patented cocky smirk, "I have always said an Alpha that can't control his omega has no business being alive. Just look at poor Rodolphus, stuck in Azkaban all because he couldn't control his omega bitch of a wife." The others laughed and sat down to drink and plot. 

Meanwhile Narcissa who had made it to her private quarters and cleaned herself up but didn't bother to heal the wounds as she sat at her vanity. "Ohh Bella I wish you were here, you would know what to do." She took a small razor and sliced along the insides of her thighs, letting out a sigh as the blood letting numbed her. 

After the fourth cut, she cleaned the razor and put it away and healed the cuts wandlessly. Fixing her appearance in the vanity mirror, that was when she saw it. The angry red forced mating bite on her neck wasn't actually as red as it normally was. Taking a few moments to inspect the bite, it actually seemed to be fading. A quick glamour returned it to its normal appearance but left questions tumbling through her mind. 'What could be the cause of this.' She wondered. She made her way out to attend to her duties but with a note to check the Library when she could.

***End Trigger Warning***

Hermione was finally able to catch up with her friends on the Hogwarts Express. Ginerva and Harry seemed satisfied but her telling them all, she spent the summer in France, Ron just turned red and sputtered and whined out, "'mione, why couldn't you sit with us at the Quidditch World cup? You had to go with those french birds?" 

Hermione blinked in confusion, "what are you talking about Ronald? I was in France and didn't go to the world cup!" She huffed out in annoyance. 

The other three, looked at each other in confusion before launching into their tale of the Quidditch World Cup finals.

"And then you flipped Ron over your shoulder and looked ready to take his head off!" Harry and Ginny rolled with laughter at recounting that.

"Oi! It's my duty to make sure 'mione is safe and ok!" Ron yelled at the pair, his face quickly matching his hair.

"And you came to this conclusion, Ron?" Came Hermione's cold reply, her eyes narrowed dangerously.

Ron puffed himself up, "well as an Alpha, it's my job to look out for those weaker." He leaned back with a smug look, clearly pleased with himself. 

Hermione's eyes flashed a dark angery gold, that only Harry caught. 

"How do you know you are an Alpha Ron?" Harry asked, as much to distract Ron and hopefully prevent the upcoming explosion, as to satisfy his own curiosity. 

Ron preened and puffed himself up further, "the Weasley Men are always Alphas, it's just the way it is, has always been." 

A seething Hermione took a sniff and smirked when she couldn't detect any Alpha stench from Ron. 

"Ohh Harry, I almost forgot." As she hands over a present to the bespeckled boy. "Happy Birthday Harry, sorry it's a bit late. I got stuck in France and all." 

Harry smiled and tore into the wrapping to reveal a box, opening the box. The first thing he spied was a book. _'Alpha to Omega, a guide to Wizarding Dynamics.'_ Harry gave Hermione a look that said really a book? 

Hermione waved the look away, "take it out, your real present is underneath. But I came across the book in France, and knowing you didn't have the education that most wizarding children get, I thought it would be good for you to have as well." She gave Harry a warm sisterly smile as the boy pulled out the top tray to expose the high end broom maintenance kit below. 

Harry gave her a genuine smile when he saw the kit. Even Ginny and Ron gushed over it. The trio took it out and spent the rest of the train ride, examining it.

All too soon the girls were kicking the boys to get changed for their arrival at Hogsmeade station. After everyone was changed and ready to disembark the train the quartet sat and chatted about mundane things until the whistle sounded, indicating the Express was coming into the station.

All too soon the students were making their way through the village to the white carriages. Hermione, Harry, Ron and Ginny ran into Luna Lovegood there, looking at something in front or the carriage. 

"Oi! Looney, what are you doing, there is nothing there!" Ron called in his smug voice. Hermione glared at him as she joined Luna at the front of the carriage and ran her hand over something. 

This caused Ron to groan out, "not you too 'Mione!" He complained in his whiney voice.

"My name is Hermione! How bloody difficult is it to say my name correctly, Ronald Bilius Weasley!" Hermione growled out as she turned toward him, her normally warm chocolate honey eyes were now a chilling gold. Harry and Ginny wisely decided to steer Ron into the carriage before Hermione ended him, but not before Ginny slapped him upside the back of the head. The red headed ponce grumbled the whole time. Hermione turned and looked at Luna once again, her eyes fading back to their normal coloring. 

"They are beautiful Luna, how come none of them seemed to be able to see them?" Hermione softly asked as she stroked the black skeletal horse. 

Luna just smiled her airy smile. "Only those you have seen death can see Thestrals. For me it was my mother, she blew herself up in a potions experiment gone wrong." The young blonde finished with a sad tone. 

Hermione instinctively hugged the younger girl, "I am so sorry Luna. No one deserves that." Luna returned the hugs and looked at Hermione before whispering. "I would ask what you have seen but it's not time yet. We must wait for the flock to arrive before you will be able to answer that." Luna spoke in an ethereal voice before she smiled and looped her arm through Hermione's arm. "We shouldn't keep them waiting any longer, besides interesting things will be happening this year." Luna finished mysteriously.Hermione let out a laugh, "well come on then little seer." She commented dryly as the pair boarded the carriage. "

Upon arriving at the entrance of the castle the quintet climbed out of the carriage. Hermione gave the Thersal one last stroke and smiled at the whinnie it let out, but that made Harry, Ron and Ginny just give her weird looks. Hermione simply shrugged and looped her arm through Luna's and headed to the great hall, while sharing a snicker with Luna.

When the entire group made it into the great hall after dodging water balloons thrown by peeves, except for Ron and Harry who were not quite fast enough to get out of the blast zone. Luna separated herself and made her way to the Ravenclaw table while Hermione and the others continued to the Gryffindor table and took their seats to await the sorting ceremony and the feast afterwards in Ron's case. 

"I wish they would hurry this up, I could eat a hippogriff." Ron whined to Harry as Harry rolled his eyes and glanced at the enchanted ceiling. Dark black and purple clouds swirled across the enchanted display with bolts of forked lightning lighting the scene up. Harry had never seen it looking this stormy before. "What Harry?" Ron moaned out but Harry was interrupted by the doors of the great hall opening causing silence to descend on the hall. Professor McGonagall led a long line of 1st years up to the top of the hall. 

Once there Professor McGonagall placed a four legged stool in the center with the ratty sorting hat laying on top. After a moment the sorting hat broke into song.

_A thousand years or more ago, When I was newly sewn, There lived four wizards of renown, Whose names are still well known: Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor, Fair Ravenclaw, from glen, Sweet Hufflepuff, from valley broad, Shrewd Slytherin, from fen. They shared a wish, a hope, a dream, They hatched a daring plan To educate young sorcerers Thus Hogwarts School began. Now each of these four founders Formed their own House, for each Did value different virtues In the ones they had to teach. By Gryffindor, the bravest were Prized far beyond the rest; For Ravenclaw, the cleverest Would always be the best; For Hufflepuff, hard workers were Most worthy of admission; And power-hungry Slytherin Loved those of great ambition. While still alive they did divide Their favorites from the throng, Yet how to pick the worthy ones When they were dead and gone? ’Twas Gryffindor who found the way, He whipped me off his head The founders put some brains in me So I could choose instead! Now slip me snug about your ears, I’ve never yet been wrong, I’ll have a look inside your mind And tell where you belong!_

The entire Great Hall broke into applause upon completion of the song. While Ron grumbled about starving as McGonagall unrolled a long scroll and commented about how the song was different each year. Professor McGonagall gave the 1rst year students the instructions before calling out the new students' names. Until the last name was called out. 

"About bloody time." Ron whined out excitedly as he grabbed his fork and knife and stared at his golden plate. Dumbledore who had risen to his feet smiled as he looked about all the faces of the students. "I have only two words for you all, _tuck in._

Harry and Ron watched excitedly as the empty platters filled with food of which Ron wasted no time loading onto his plate, while Harry and Hermione went at a more leisurely pace. The pair also ate at a more sedate pace whereas Ron shovelled as much into his mouth as possible. 

Once everyone ate their fill, Dumbledore rose to his feet once again. "So!" Dumbledore started as he looked around with his grandfatherly look. "Now that we have all been fed and watered. I must once again ask for your attention, while I give out a few notices and rules." Dumbledore gave the hall another grandfatherly look as he continued his rambling speech until he reached one particular part- "It is also my painful duty to inform you that the Inter-House Quidditch Cup will not take place this year.” 

"What?” Harry gasped at almost the same time that Fred and George, Weasley twins. Shouted out as one. "You're Joking!" Dumbledore chuckled along with most of the students. " I am not joking, Mr. Weasley,” Dumbledore said, “though now that you mention it, I did hear an excellent one over the summer about a troll, a hag, and a leprechaun who all go into a bar . . .” Professor McGonagall cleared her throat loudly. “Er — but maybe this is not the time . . . no . . .” said Dumbledore, “where was I? Ahh yes. This is due to an event that will be starting in October, and continuing throughout the school year, taking up much of the teachers’ time and energy — but I am sure you will all enjoy it immensely. I have great pleasure in announcing that this year at Hogwarts —”

Dumbledore was interrupted at that moment, as there was a deafening rumble of thunder and the doors of the Great Hall banged open. A flash of lightning illuminated the entryway, revealing the outline of a man stood in the doorway, leaning upon a heavy long crutch-like staff, grabbed in a worn black traveling cloak that was in actuality more dark gray than black. The students all twisted their heads to look at the latecomer, when he was suddenly brightly illuminated by a fork of lightning that flashed across the ceiling. Long grizzled, dark gray hair that hung in greasy twisted knotted tangles. He began to hobble toward the teachers’ table with a dull thunk every step, as he limped heavily toward Dumbledore. Another flash of lightning crossed the ceiling, illuminating his frightening eyes. One of them was small, dark, and beady. The other was large, round as a coin, and a vivid, electric blue. The blue eye was moving ceaselessly, without blinking, and was rolling up, down, and from side to side, quite independently of the normal eye — and then it rolled right over, pointing into the back of the man’s head, so that all they could see was whiteness. Once the man reached Dumbledore, they spoke briefly. Dumbledore seemed to be making some inquiry of the stranger, who shook his head grimly and replied in a gruff undertone. Dumbledore nodded and gestured the man to the empty seat on his right-hand side.  
The stranger took his seat and shook his mane of dark gray hair out of his face, before pulling a plate of sausages toward him, and began to eat. His normal eye was fixed upon the sausages, but the blue eye was still darting restlessly around in its socket, taking in the Hall and the students. "Our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Moody.” 

Moody seemed totally indifferent to his less-than-warm welcome. Ignoring the jug of pumpkin juice in front of him, he reached again into his traveling cloak, pulled out a hip flask, and took a long draught from it. As he lifted his arm to drink, his cloak was pulled a few inches from the ground, and Harry saw, below the table, several inches of carved wooden leg, ending in a clawed foot.  
Dumbledore cleared his throat.  
"As I was saying, Hogwarts has been selected to host a very exciting event over the school year, something that has not been held in more than a century. It is my pleasure to inform you that the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place with Hogwarts serving as the host school." Dumbledore went on to give a brief overview of the tournament."Now the contingents from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will be arriving in early October with the selection of the Champions to take place on Halloween. An impartial judge will be making the selections for each school and to help minimize the dangers to each student body, it has been decided by the Ministry of Magic to only allow students that are 17 or older to compete. This is for the safety of all involved. Now off to bed with all of you, chop chop!" 

The students all headed out toward their common rooms, many of them grumbling about the restriction. Such as Fred and George, who complained and plotted the whole way.


	3. To Flock n Roll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other schools arrive, Hermione is confused by how several of the visiting students react to her and Ron is Ron of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Once again parts of this chapter form the Goblet of Fire book. I still don’t own anything Harry Potter outside this plot.
> 
> Many thanks to the wonderful [Bozie_Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozie_Quinn/pseuds/Bozie_Quinn), who helped with the inspiration for much of this chapter.
> 
> _French speech_  
>  **Veela speech**

# To Flock and Roll

The next morning found a group of Gryffindors trudging down to the great hall for breakfast, while gray gloomy clouds rolled across the enchanted ceiling. Under that overcast sky, Harry, Ron and Hermione sat at the Gryffindor table, the 3 busy examining their new class schedules. While a short way down the table several other students were discussing magical ways of aging themselves.

"Today looks promisingly easy, outside all morning. Lets see Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and Care of Magical Creatures with damnit, still with those bloody snakes." Ron mused around a mouthful of bacon and eggs as he glared over at the Slytherin table. 

Harry let out a long suffering groan, "double Divinations this afternoon." Resigning himself to a long afternoon of Professor Trelawney predicting his death in his least favorite class, besides Potions.

"You should have dropped it as I did." Hermione casually commented while sedately putting food on her plate and slowly eating. "Then you could have taken something sensible like ancient runes or Arithmancy."

Ron rolled his eyes as he turned to Hermione, speaking around a mouthful of food. "Don't think we have forgotten about the Quidditch World Cup, we know you were there 'mione." Spew bits of food with each word. 

Hermione's eyes flashed gold once more and all but shouted, "disgusting Ron, finish chewing before you speak, I've seen better manners from a pig!-" the rest of her reply was cut off as the owls flooded into the great hall. Hooting and generally making a ruckus as well as Luna popping up and dismissing the ideas that the other Gryffindors were discussing further down the table. 

Soon the students were heading out to their morning classes, herbology passed quickly thankfully, a lesson about bubotubers which was disgusting enough. Now the trio trudged across the grounds towards Hagrid's hut and teaching area. Where they had to deal with freshly hatched Blasted-Ended Skrewts. Even the Slytherin students seemed put off by this lesson. A few of them a nice green to match their robes, not that the Gryffindors were any better off. Hermione was seriously considering burning her robes as she washed up before heading to lunch.

Once the small group exited the great hall after lunch, and started toward their afternoon classes. 

"So 'mione about the Quidditch cup you swear you were not at..." Ron started up again, even using air quotes as he spoke sarcastically. 

"Weasley!, hey Weasley!" Draco Malfoy interrupted as the trio was cutting through a courtyard. He was standing there with Goyle and Crabbe looking particularly smug about something. "You dad is in the paper again!" And proceeded to read out loud the entire article for the gathering crowd to hear. Ron started turning as red as his hair. Harry and Hermione quickly hurried the fuming Ron past the laughing snakes. 

There were several screams from students as Harry felt something hot fly past his face. He reached to pull his wand when he heard a loud bang and as he turned around he saw Professor Moody hobbling down the stairs, his wand pointed at a pure white ferret where Malfoy was. Roaring out as he hobbled into the courtyard.

"OH NO YOU DON'T LADDIE." 

Professor Moody hobbled up beside the trio. "Did he get you?" Moody asked of Harry. Harry just shook his head, "no he missed." Moody nodded before roaring out again. "NO LEAVE IT!" 

Harry blinked, "leave what?" 

“Not you -- him!” Moody growled out, jerking his thumb over his shoulder towards Crabbe who was about to pick up the white ferret. Moody turned and started Crabbe, Goyle and the ferret, which squeaked out before taking off towards the dungeons. 

Moody responded by pointing his wand at the ferret again, causing the ferret to bounce up in the air and land hard on the ground before bouncing up in the air once more. “I don’t like people who attack when their opponents’s back is turned.it’s a stinking cowardly, scummy thing to do...” the whole time the ferret bounced against the ground time and time again as it let out squeals of pain and what sounded like terror. “Never...do...that.. Again.” as the ferret bounced off the ground with each word. 

“Professor Moody!” said a voice full of shock as Professor McGonagall as the older witch hurried down the stairs into the courtyard.

“Ohh hello Professor McGonagall.” Moody replied as he continued to bounce the ferret up and down. 

“Just what are you doing?” McGonagall asked with a voice full of dread. 

“Teaching.” Moody replied with a shrug as he kept bouncing the ferret. 

McGonagall paled as she asked, “Moody, is that..a student?”

Moody just have McGonagall another shrug and bounced the ferret higher, “Yep”

“No!” Professor McGonagall shrieked out as she hurried down to the courtyard, pulling her wand as she ran, a moment later Draco Malfoy reappeared, looking like he had been put through the wringer, his blonde going out in all different directions and sporting a bright pink flushed face, wobbling a bit unsteady as he got back to his feet. “Professor Moody, we _never_ use Transfiguration as a punishment! Surely Professor Dumbledore told you that?” Professor McGonagall finished her berating of Professor Moody. 

Moody grumbled out, “he might have mentioned it.” as he stood there scratching his chin, completely unconcerned about Professor McGonagall lecturing him. 

Draco Malfoy stumbled and muttered something under his breath, something that sounded a lot like his normal threat of ‘my father will hear of this’ 

Professor Moody scoffed as he stalked forward as intimidatingly as possible on a wooden leg.  
“Is that right?” Moody growled out quietly. “Well, I know ye father of oldboy, go ahead and tell him Moody’s keeping a close eye on his son, now you tell him that from me.. Now, Snape is your head of House?” 

“Y..yes” Malfoy answered, resentment lacing his reply.

Moody nodded and growled softly, “Another old friend, one I’ve been looking forward to having a chat with,, so come on you.” Squeezing Malfoy’s upper arm in a vice like grip as Moody marched him off to the dungeons. 

Harry, Ron and Hermione just looked at each other before they realized they needed to get to class quickly. Harry and Ron running for the North Tower while Hermione heading in the opposite direction as she made her way to her Arithmancy class with a hasty will see you both at dinner. 

When dinner rolled around, the Golden Trio were chatting with The Weasley Twins as well as Lee Jordan about Professor Moody. 

“Moody!” Fred started. “How cool is he?” 

“Beyond cool,” continued George

“Supercool,” picked up Lee Jordan, as if the three had practiced this a thousand times before now, ensnaring the attention of Harry, Ron and Hermione, proved when Harry eagerly asked. 

“What was it like?” Ron and Hermione leaned forward a bit in their seats. 

“Never had a lesson like it.” Fred picked up this time, answering the question. 

“He _knows_ ” Lee filled in, mysteriously. 

“Knows what?” Ron asked as he leaned further forward, 

“Knows what it’s like to be out there _doing_ it.” George added in an impressively ominous tone. 

Hermione scoffed as Harry and Ron ate up the whole performance. “Doing what?” Harry couldn’t resist asking while Ron nodded along and Hermione rolled her eyes. 

“Fighting the Dark Arts.” Fred replied grimly.

“He’s seen it all,” George added in a solemn voice as he nodded along. 

“Amazing.” Lee added for effect while Ron and Harry scrambled to find their schedules, Ron finding his first and letting out a groan of disappointment. “We haven’t got him till Thursday!” he whined out.

The next few days of classes passed without anything real of note, unless you count the incident in potions, where Ron once again was pestering Hermione to answer his questions on where she had been this summer. Ron was leaning past Harry to get into Hermione’s face as he grilled her. Harry and Hermione for their parts just ignored the ranting redhead. That was when Professor Snape appeared behind Ron and looked down his hooked nose at the redhead. 

“While we all are fascinated by your need to pander to Ms. Granger’s tonsils Mr. Weasley.. Please do sit down and be quiet, this is a classroom not your common room. 15 points from Gryffindor. “ came Snape’s bored sarcastic drawl.

Ron’s face quickly matched his hair and it wouldn’t be hard to imagine steam coming out of his ears as the slytherin’s in the room all laughed obnoxiously led by Malfoy. Unfortunately for Neville Longbottom, he managed to somehow melt yet another cauldron, his 6th or 7th of his academic career to receive detention with Snape once more, which helped take the spotlight off Ron from the start of the class. 

When Thursday rolled around and it was time for the DADA lesson, Harry and Ron were so excited and worked up, the pair actually showed up early and waited for the bell to ring. Eventually the pair was joined by Hermione who rolled her eyes at the pair’s behavior

The young lion had enough on her plate with her coursework as well as a feeling something would be happening soon. Not to mention the crazy dreams she was having, it was almost like a repressed memory but she’s always had a normal if not a little lonely of a childhood. Shaking off her dark thoughts, Hermione got her stuff in order, making a last minute adjustment to her copy of _The Dark Forces: A guide to Self-Protection._

The students looked around curious as to where their professor was when the distinctive clunking of Professor Moody’s wooden leg echoed down the hallway. Moments later the classroom door burst open as Moody swept into the classroom. 

“You can put those away.” he growled in his normal voice. “The books, you can put them away, you won’t need them.” His magical eye twirling around, making sure the students did indeed put the books away. As the class followed directions, many of them were looking excited in much the same way Harry and Ron were. Apparently Fred and George had given the same spiel to many other younger years to cause all the excitement in the air.

Professor Moody took the time to pull out a register and took a drink from his flask as he began to call out the class names. With each name his magical eye would zoom around to pin that student in their seat before zooming off to pin the next student. Eventually he reached the end of the roll call and went on to give a short synopsis of his curriculum for the upcoming year.

“Now Curses, they come in many strengths and forms. According to the Ministry of Magic approved curriculum, I am supposed to teach you countercurses and leave it at that. I’m not supposed to show you what illegal Dark curses look like until you are 6th years. The Ministry of Magic feels you all are not old enough to deal with it till then. But your headmaster, Professor Dumbledore has a higher opinion of your nerves. He believes you all can cope just fine, and I thankfully agree with him, the sooner you know what you’re up against, the better. Just how are you supposed to defend yourself or your loved ones against something you’ve never seen or encountered. An Alpha wizard or even a beta wizard isn’t going to tell you he’s going to cast such and such curse on you. And he most certainly won’t be nice and polite to your face. You need to be prepared, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” His magical eye spun around to pin Lavender Brown, “Put that away Ms Brown when I’m talking.” 

Lavender Brown jumped and blushed as she hurriedly put the horoscope she was showing Parvati Patil under the desk away. 

“Now as I was saying, Constant Vigilance! You need to be alert and watchful at all times. Does anyone here know which curses are the most heavily punished by Wizarding law?” Moody continued without missing a beat. 

Quite a few hands went into the air, including Harry, Ron’s and Hermione’s hands. Moody scanned the classroom before pointing to Ron as his magical eye continued to roam the student body. Spending a bit longer looking at Lavender Brown, Daphne Greengrass, and Pansy Parkinson as he was ogling them through their robes. 

“Mr Weasley?” Moody growled out. 

Ron answered tentatively, “Umm, my dad told me about one.. It is called the Imperius Curse or something like that?”

“Ahh yes,”Moody grunted out appreciatively. “Your father would _know_ that one. Gave the Ministry a lot of trouble at one time, the Imperius Curse.” Moody nodded and grunted as he hobbled over to his desk and opened one of the drawers, pulling out a large glass jar. A glass jar that contained three large black spiders. Harry and Hermione both saw Ron grow pale as Moody pulled out one of the spiders, understandable giving how much Ron hated spiders.

Professor Moody lifted his hand holding the spider aloft as he pointed his wand at the spider, and said _”Imperio!”_ in his growling gravelly voice. 

With jerky movements of his wand, Moody had the spider doing cartwheels and jumping from desk to desk as the entire class outside of Moody was laughing. 

“Think this is funny, do you?” Moody growled out to the entire class. “Think it would still be funny if I was to do this to you, do you?” 

The laughter instantly died away, leaving the classroom in silence. “Total control,” Moody continued in his gravely growling voice as he directed the spider to ball itself up and roll around the current desk it was on. “I could make it jump out of the window, drown itself, throw itself down one of your throats...” which caused Ron and several others to shudder in disgust. 

“Years back, there were a lot of witches and wizards being controlled by the Imperius Curse,” Moody continued without a pause. The entire class just knew the Professor was referencing the days in which the Dark Lord had been all-powerful. “Some job for the Ministry, trying to sort out who was being forced to act, and who was acting of their own free will. Made even harder when one took into account the old custom of forced mating bites.” 

“The Imperius Curse can be fought, and I’ll be teaching you how later in the year, but it takes real strength of character, and that is something not everyone has. It is better to avoid being hit with it if at all possible. CONSTANT VIGILANCE!” he finished with a barking growl causing the entire classroom to jump as Moody picked up the spider and tossed it back into the Jar. 

“Anyone else got one for me? Another illegal curse?”

Harry blinked as he watched both Hermione and Neville’s hands shoot into the air. Hermione shuddered in disgust as she felt the magical eye peel her school uniform away before it landed on Neville. “Yes?” Moody inquired.

“There’s one-- the Cruciatus Curse,” Neville replied in a small hesitant voice. 

Moody nodded, “Longbottom was it?” he asked as he double checked the registry with his magical eye. Neville simply nodded and Moody let it go at that as he pulled out the second spider and turned to face the class once more. “The Cruciatus Curse,” Moody started, then paused as he examined the spider. “Needs to be a bit bigger for you all to get the full picture.” as he stabbed at the spider with his wand and growled out, “ _Engorgio!_ ”

The entire class watched as the spider swelled, growing larger than a tarantula. This caused Ron to push his seat back as far as he could away from Moody’s desk with his eyes wide and skin pale. 

Professor Moody simply pointed his wand at the spider when he deemed it was big enough and muttered, _“Crucio!”_

At once the spider twisted and bent into an odd shape as Hermione fell into a memory so vivid it felt like she was living it at that particular moment. 

_Two year old Hermione was playing in one of the upstairs rooms with Celeste, her cousin, when a loud explosion shook the house. Moments later her maman, Isabella ran into the room slamming the door shut behind her._

_“Celeste, it is time, you must make sure she reaches her destination. Make sure she sees this before you complete your tasks” Isabella as she scooped up young Hermione and pushed her into Celeste’s hands along with her bags with an undetectable extension charm on them. Before she pushed Celeste to the Floo network, she pushed a small back into the other veela’s hands. “Make sure she takes that before all is said and done. It will be important.”_

_Celeste, having been trained extensively on this, knew just what to do as she gathered Hermione and her stuff before taking off through the Floo network with Isabella disconnecting the Floo as planned behind her._

_Young Hermione whimpered and cried into Celeste’s shoulder, “Maman! Mère!” she cried, knowing something terrible was about to happen. This only made the young child cry harder as the young Celeste transferred her to the squibs that would be taking care of her after feeding the child the strawberry flavored potion. “Emma and Daniel Granger, I am truly sorry to interrupt your evening” Celeste stated just before casting the memory charms that made all believe that Hermione had always been their child, as well as urging the squib couple to spend their summers in Marseille near the flock’s land._

The memory was interrupted by a sobbing shrill cry of “Stop it!” which Hermione later would realize came from herself. The rest of the lesson was lost as she was plunged into another memory. This one of an older Hermione viewing a memory in a pensieve. 

_10 year old Hermione looked around, noting the members of the flock before Celeste poured a vial of memories into a pensieve. Hermione took another breath before plunging her head into the device. Hermione watched as four men and one woman broke down the wards of her home and crashed through the doorway.  
She saw as Isabella ran out of the room with a young Hermione. A brash blonde haired man with the swagger of privilege sauntered up to Marie. “Now Now be a good whore and tell us where your wife is taking the child, our lord has an interest in that child. Nothing to say? Maybe this will loosen your filthy bitch of a tongue. Crucio!!” the blonde sadisticly and gleefully danced as Marie Delacour screamed out from the torture curse.  
As the others spread out amongst the house. The woman with dark riotous hair looked sick many times but a tall wicked looking man always slapped her to focus. Next Hermione watched as her mother Isabella strode down the stairs,  
“you will never find her Lucius Malfoy, your family betrayed the clan all because some pretty half-blood promised your father we would return to the old ways? And you Rodolphus and Rasbatian Lestrange, a pair of lap dogs, our daughter is well beyond your reach now. I see you hiding in the back there Bartemius Crouch Jr hiding in the back, does your father know you are hanging out these dredges?”  
Isabella turns her gaze to the woman, “You I am not familiar with, but by the look of you, one of these brutes has you under a forced mating bite. You will be forgiven when the time comes although these other 4 have already forfeited their lives. “ Isabella smirks and suddenly appears next to the woman and sniffs at her neck. Tisking,  
“Suffer you must, especially being bound to the dickless wonder twins over there” she jerks her head to the Lestrange brothers.  
"But in time you will find true peace and happiness, even love. His hold is not infinite.” she glares at Rod who is trembling with rage.  
“May I know your name, good Lass?”  
“Bellatrix.. Bellatrix Black..” she whispers out before screaming out in pain as Rod forces the mating mark to punish Bellatrix.  
Rod shakes his head, “You stupid omega bitch, you are a lestrange now until the day you die..if you get lucky. Now do it you omega slag!”  
Chaos descends at that moment as Rod who may not be skilled at much but he is skilled at controlling his omega through the bond has Bellatrix curse Isabella soon spells were flying as all four of the gate crashers got into it. Just before multiple pops sounded around the property.  
Lucius Malfoy and Roldolphus Lestrange share a wicked grin before each cast Avada Kedavra or the killing curse before apparating away. Hermione pulled her head out of the pensieve gasping for air. _

When Hermione surfaced from her memory, the class was deserted, but Moody was leaning against his crutch. “You look like you have seen a ghost, the unforgivables are not new to you are they lass?” Moody asked in his gravelly voice somewhat softly. 

Hermione shakes her head, “No Professor, I have seen them used before especially the Cruciatus Curse” 

Moody nodded his head, “Might be why they affected you so much.. Now why don’t you and Longbottom head onto your next class, here is a slip explaining why you were late.”

Hermione gasped having forgotten Neville was still there, clutching a book titled, _Magical Water Plants of the Mediterranean._ Hermione nodded taking the slip and heading out of the classroom with Neville. Professor Moody’s magical eye watching as they wandered off chatting softly with each other. 

[October]

October quickly rolled around, the trio was sitting in their DADA class as Professor Moody explained he would be placing each student under the Imperius Curse to demonstrate its power and to see whether they could resist the effects. 

Hermione stewed but remained quiet, she still hasn’t overcome what she experienced in his first class, she watched as one by one their classmates were put on the Imperius Curse and made to do a variety of novel tasks. Eventually Harry was called for his turn. Hermione watched as he seemed to be in conflict with himself before eventually crashing into one of the desks, painfully it appeared. Hermione just shook her head. Before she heard Moody call out “Granger.” Hermione moved to the front where Moody growled out the curse. _”Imperio!”_  
Hermione didn’t feel any different and when a voice echoed in her mind. _Kiss the one you fancy... Kiss the one you fancy.”_ Hermione’s eyes flashed gold as she stood up straight and huffed out. “They are not here, therefore I can’t” as she thought of pale silvery blonde hair and striking blue eyes. Hemione didn’t see Ron's disappointed face and honestly she didn’t really care. Nor did she really care for the look Professor Moody was giving her and just huffed before taking her seat once more. She watched as the rest of the students seemed to fail at even attempting to fight it off. 

Later in Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall explained why it seemed the Professors all had increased across the board. 

“You are now entering a most important phase of your magical education!” McGonagall told the class, “Your Ordinary Wizarding Levels are drawing closer.” 

Ron couldn’t help but blurt out, “O.W.L.s are not till fifth year, the end of 5th year!” he stated indignantly. 

Mcgonagall simply fixed Ron with her patented glare. “Maybe not Mr Weasley, but believe me, many of you need all the preparation you can get! So far Miss Granger is the only person in this class who has managed to turn a hedgehog into a satisfactory pincushion. I might remind you Mr Weasley, _your pincushion, Mr Wealwey still runs in fright if anyone approaches it with a pin!”_

_Lunch arrived and the trio found themselves stuck in a large congregation of students milling around a large sign that had been erected at the food of the marble staircase. Ron elbowed and wiggled to see what the sign said._

__

##  **Triwizard Tournament**

THE DELEGATIONS FROM BEAUXBATONS AND DURMSTRANG WILL BE ARRIVING AT 6 O’CLOCK ON FRIDAY THE 30TH OF OCTOBER. LESSONS WILL END HALF AN HOUR EARLY. STUDENTS WILL RETURN THEIR BAGS AND BOOKS TO THEIR DORMITORIES AND ASSEMBLE IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE TO GREET OUR GUESTS BEFORE THE WELCOMING FEAST.

Ron and Harry looked at each other, “Brilliant!” Harry exclaimed, “Potion’s is our last on Friday, this way Snape won’t have time to poison us all!”

“It’s only a week awake!” Ernie Macmillan, a Hufflepuff, stated, “I wonder if Cedric knows? I think I will go and tell him...”

Over the following week, it appeared that the tournament was all anyone could speak of. The castle also appeared to have undergone a deep extra-through cleaning. Many of the grimy portraits had been cleaned much to the displeasure of the occupants and even the suits of armor gleamed with metal that probably hadn’t been polished in centuries. 

Finally the October 30th arrived and the students were all standing neatly outside awaiting the other two schools to arrive. Whispers and murmurs swept through the Hogwarts students as they waited. 

“Aha! Unless I am very much mistaken, the delegation from Beauxbatons approaches!” Dumbledore called out from the back row where he stood with the other professors. 

The Hogwarts students chattered excitedly as eventually the large house sized powder blue horse drawn carriage landed, the elephant sized winged horses snorted and blew steam from their nostrils as they pawed the ground. 

Shortly thereafter a young student, dressed in pale blue robes, jumped out and worked some mechanism under the carriage to extend a set of golden stairs. A moment later, a woman equally as large as Hagrid stepped out, dressed from head to toe in black satin with her dark hair pulled back with a gold clasp at the base of her neck. She stepped off the stairs and made her way towards Dumbledore. 

Dumbledore started to clap, soon followed by the students. The woman lifted her hand as Dumbledore himself bent slightly to kiss it. “My dear Madame Maxime,” Dumbledore said, “Welcome to Hogwarts.” 

“Dumbly-dorr,” Madame Maxime replied in a deep voice, “I ‘ope I find you well?”

Dumbledore smiled, a twinkle in his eye. “In excellent form, I thank you.”

Madame Maxime waved one of her hands behind her towards the Carriage. “My pupils.” 

At least a dozen if not more girls, all in their late teens, by the look of them, with one slightly smaller girl clinging to another blonde’s robes. It was this smaller girl that made Hermione wince, a memory of her playing with a very similar looking girl this summer surfacing. 

Madame Maxime and Dumbledore exchanged a few more words, mostly about the care of her steeds before she escorted her students up towards the castle. 

The students did not have to wait long before an enormous ship rose out of the depths of Black Lake and cast anchor. People could be seen disembarking, the new arrivals made their way up towards Dumbledore. A man dressed in sleek silver and black furs was in front and greeted Dumbledore in a friendly manner. Professor Karkaroff the students overheard as he spoke with Professor Dumbledore. 

Karkaroff and Dumbledore proceeded to chat away when Ron realized who exactly was passing by and wouldn’t help but shout out. “Harry, look , it's Krum!” 

This made the boy in question stop and turn towards Harry, Ron and Hermione,and released aggressive dominant alpha pheromones, blasting the trio with them. Almost immediately Ron dropped to his knees and bared his neck, while Harry, who also had dropped to his knees, was barely able to keep from baring his own neck. Hermione meanwhile, just stood there, her eyes flashing gold, unnoticed fangs growing in her mouth as she growled at Viktor Krum. Fortunately Karkaroff arrived to pull Krum out of the display. 

With the excitement seemingly over, the Hogwarts students headed into the great hall and took their seats. Apparently both Beauxbatons and Drumstrang had some sort of display to put on as part of their entrances. As soon as those presentations were done with, most of the Beauxbaton students made a beeline towards Hermione, pushing and shoving many of the other Gryffindors away while the rest went to sit at the Ravenclaw table, Madame Maxime stopped to speak to a girl with silvery platinum hair before nodding a few moment later as said girl appeared and sat right beside Hermione. 

Ron and Harry both blinked at the display before Ron turned red. “You!” he pointed a grubby finger at the girl. “You were one of those that kept my Hermione from me at the Quidditch World Cup!” his voice raising as he got worked up. “Now she won’t even admit to being there, tells me she was in France the whole time.” He banged his fist down on the table, as the girl just smirks, “Monsieur, let me explain zomething to you. ‘ermione iz her own Perzon, and she would never be the property of a weak omega like you.” The girl stuck her nose up and proceeded to cuddle with a very confused looking Hermione. Hermione gave the other woman a look and softly said.  
_”We will speak more on this later Mademoiselle”_

Dumbledore rose at the head table and lifted his goblet. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and especially to our esteemed guests," Dumbledore spoke as he gazed around the hall with his patented grandfatherly look while beaming at the foriegn students. "It is my great pleasure to welcome you all, it is my deepest and sincerest wish your stay will be comfortable and enjoyable. It is also my wish that both the Hogwarts students and our foriegn students will get along in the spirit this tournament was designed. Now the tournament will officially be opened at the end of the feast, I now invite you all to eat, drink, and make yourselves at home!”

Hermione spent the rest of the meal chatting quite fondly with the French students in French like she had been speaking it all her life. Ron, who was an ugly mix of purple and red, tried to put on airs and woo a couple of them but soon stopped when something whipped out and caused him a great amount of pain.

"Oi! What the bloody hell was that!" Ron glared at Hermione and the French students, which caused many to giggle and laugh at the mismatched face he was making. Hermione just glared at him with her angry golden eyes. 

Fleur cuddling into Hermione's side as she alternated between eating and hand feeding the bouillabaisse that was in front of them to Hermione, spoke up. "Zat was zee thrall of an angry Veela. One who is pissed at you for trying to claim zat which is not yours, monsieur Weasley." 

Fleur scoffed before returning to feed Hermione and whisper to her in French. 

_"Calm down mon ami, I wish the rest of the clan was here to help you through this, but know I will do the best I can."_ she finished by placing a kiss on Hermione's temple. 

Ron barked out harshly, "Bloody birds, we are in Scotland, you cas n bloody well speak English like the rest of us!" The reaction was more instantaneous as Ron was slapped brutally by multiple extremely angry thralls; the result of which was Ron being knocked from his seat.  
Groaning as he sat upon the floor with a blood oozing out of his nose. 

Many of his own Gryffindors were looking at Ron with disgust, Lavender even went so far to dump her pumpkin juice on Ron before moving to the other end of the table with Parvati Patel, both girls huffing out their annoyance at the boy while glaring at him. Harry expected Ron would be getting a Howler soon.


	4. We are the Champion's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fleur and Hermione start to have their talk, the Champion's are choosen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: Once again parts of this chapter form the Goblet of Fire book. I still don’t own anything Harry Potter outside this plot.  
> Before anyone asks, I have decided to drop the whole S.P.E.W. thing as it doesn't fit with the plot of this story. 
> 
> Also I realized after it was written,this Chapter is much more Harry-centric than I had planned. I have scaled him back for the following Chapters.
> 
> To all those who have kudo's , commented on and bookmarked this work. you have my thanks and appreciation.. you are what keeps this work going..
> 
> Many thanks to the wonderful [Bozie_Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozie_Quinn/pseuds/Bozie_Quinn), who helped with the inspiration for much of this chapter.
> 
> _French speech_  
>  **Veela speech**

# 

We are the Champions

_last time_

_Ron barked out harshly, "Bloody birds, we are in Scotland, you cas n bloody well speak English like the rest of us!" The reaction was more instantaneous as Ron was slapped brutally by multiple extremely angry thralls; the result of which was Ron being knocked from his seat.  
Groaning as he sat upon the floor with a blood oozing out of his nose. _

_Many of his own Gryffindors were looking at Ron with disgust, Lavender even went so far to dump her pumpkin juice on Ron before moving to the other end of the table with Parvati Patel, both girls huffing out their annoyance at the boy._

The students were able to see the caretaker, Argus Filch bringing additional seats in for the staff table, the students looked confused when it became evident he was bringing in four new chairs which he placed them two seats on either side of Dumbledore's throne like seat at the long staff table.

Once Karkaroff and Madame Maxime took their seats, Dumbledore rose to his feet and motioned for the hall to quiet down, while Madame Maxime looked curious as to why half her students were sitting at the Gryffindor Table and the other half at the Ravenclaw Table. 

Once the great hall had quieted down, Dumbledore gave Madame Maxime a curious look as two people slipped into the remaining empty seats. Hermione nudged Fleur looking up at the head table, catching Harry's attention.

"Who are they and what are they doing here, Hermione?" Harry asked in a voice laced with confusion. 

"Ludo bagman," Hermione nodded to the man sitting by Karkaroff, "and Bartemius Crouch Sr." Hermione and Fleur replied as one, their voices creating an odd harmony.

Harry nods and chuckles, "you two do that much better than Fred and George." Turning to Ron, "Ron isn't Mr Crouch your brother Percy's boss?"

Ron nodded, "yeah he is, I wonder if my git of a brother is around somewhere?." 

Harry just shrugged and looked around the hall, then blinked several times as Luna Lovegood suddenly appeared spread across the lap of both girls. 

"Hello Harry, how are you feeling?" Luna asks in a soft voice, "it looks like all your Nargles have joined the ones Ron has." She continued as she glanced at a sputtering purple faced Ron.

"Looney! What do you want? Shouldn't you be with the other outcasts?" Ron snapped in humiliated anger as he continued to stuff his face, the words out before he could stop himself.

Ginny sighed as she slapped Ron on the back of the head. "You idiot! That is my friend!" Ginny yelled at him, but before Ron could snap at Ginny a loud slap echoed as Ron was once again on the receiving end of the unknown angry thrall, a thrall that hit Ron so hard it left a visible bruise on the dunderhead's face, knocking him to the floor, and caused him to start choking on all the food he had stuffed into his mouth. 

"Mr. Weasley!" Came a shrieking Scottish timbre. "What is going on here?" 

Ron looked up at the furious face of Head of Gryffindor Professor McGonagall, tapping her foot. All Ron could do was sit on the stone floor hacking and wheezing and point towards his neck.

Fortunately, Fred and George Weasley swooped in and picked Ron up, "we'll get him to the infirmary Professor!" They cheerfully spoke out, pulling Ron toward the entrance door as Filch wheeled in what appeared to be a large chest resting on a wheeled cart.

The twins could be heard berating Ron as they dragged him toward the infirmary.

At the head table, Dumbledore had a dark look in his eyes as he observed the scene. After conversing with those around him for a few minutes, Dumbledore went to speak.

"Now that we've all been fed and watered, the time has arrived, "Dumbledore took a moment to look out with his trusted grandfatherly look, a twinkle in his eye. The TriWizard Tournament is about to start. But first I would like to say a few words before the casket is brought forth--"

Harry blanched, "casket, what casket?" He looked around but no one around looked any wiser, although Luna seemed to be happily sitting on Fleurs lap at the moment and smiled at Harry. "Don't let the wrackspurts in Harry" Luna said with a giggling smile. Harry just nodded confused and turned back to Dumbledore. 

"--just to clarify the procedure that will be used this year. But first, allow me to introduce, for those who are unaware of who they are, Mr Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation," Dumbledore paused at the small polite applause that followed. "And Mr Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports." A much more enthusiastic applause rang out for Bagman who smiled and returned with a jovial wave. While Mr Crouch had not acknowledged the applause when his name was called.  
"Now Mr Bagman and Mr Crouch have worked tirelessly over the last few months on the arrangements for the Triwizard Tournament, and they will be joining Professor Karkaroff, Madame Maxime and myself on the panel of judges that will be judging the champions efforts."

Dumbledore, perhaps noticing how all the students were paying rapt attention, smiled his grandfatherly smile. "The casket please Mr Filch."

Argus Filch, who had been hiding in a corner straightened up and pushed his wheeled cart with a great wooden jewel encrusted chest on it, approached Dumbledore. Whispers of excited interest arose in the gathered students, several of the younger and smaller students actually stood on their benches hoping for a better view. Most of them get thwarted in their efforts by the other standing students. 

"Now the instructions for the tasks the champions will face this year have already been examined by Mr Crouch and Mr Bagman," Dumbledore paused as Filch moved the chest from the trolley to the table in front of Dumbledore, "and the necessary arrangements have been made for each challenge. There will be three tasks. Spaced throughout the rest of the school year, and they will test the champions in different ways, their daring, their powers of deduction, and let us not forget their ability to cope with danger."  
Dumbledore looked out at the deathly silent hall. The students didn't even seem to be breathing.

With the twinkle back in his eye. Dumbledore continued,  
"As you know, three champions compete in the tournament,one from each participating school. They will be marked on how well they perform each of the tournament tasks and the champion with the highest total at the third task will win the Triwizard Cup. The champions will be selected by an impartial selector: The Goblet of Fire!"  
Dumbledore pulled his wand and tapped the top of the chest three times. Causing it to pop open, then reaching inside, he withdrew a large roughly hewn cup with dancing blur white flames at the top. Dumbledore closed the lid and set the goblet on top, so that it would be visible to all the students.

"Anyone wishing to submit themselves as a possible champion must clearly write their name and the name of their school on a sheet of paper and drop it into the goblet. Now aspiring champions have 24 hours to submit their names. Tomorrow night, Halloween, the goblet will return the names of the three it has judged most worthy to judge their schools. The goblet will be placed in the entrance hall tonight where it will be freely accessible for those wishing to compete. And to ensure that no underage yield to the temptation, I will be placing an age line around the Goblet of Fire once it has been placed nobody under the age of seventeen will be able to cross this line." 

Dumbledore took a more serious expression, "I wish to impress upon any of you wishing to complete that this tournament is not to be entered lightly. Once a champion has been selected by the Goblet of Fire, he or she is obligated to see the tournament through to the end. By placing your name in the goblet constitutes a magically binding contract. There can be no of heart once you become one of the champions. Please be very sure, therefore, that you are wholeheartedly committed to being a champion, before you drop your name in the goblet. Now, I think it is time for bed goodnight to you all."

"An age line!" Fred Weasley exclaimed, surprising Harry and a few of the other students who had not noticed their return along with a sullen glowering Ron. He and George led the group out into the entrance hall. "That should be fooled by an Aging potion, shouldn't it?" "And once your name's on the goblet, it won't be able to tell if you are seventeen or not!" 

The Beauxbatons students crowding around Hermione all scoffed causing Hermione to giggle, "I don't think anyone under seventeen will stand a chance, we just haven't learned enough--" Hermione started to say before George cut her off.

"Speak for yourself," he snipped, "you'll try to get in Harry, won't you?"

Harry thought about it but shook his head, "I just want a normal year for once."

Ron, who had been busy looking for Viktor Krum, caught just the end of it. "Come on mate, we can be rich and famous together!" He exclaimed a bit loudly only to be shushed by his brothers. 

The following morning the trio made their way down to breakfast, a large number of students had decided to eat their breakfast in the entryway. Against the wall by the entry to the great hall, the Goblet of Fire sat upon the sorting stool. A thin glittery line surrounded the stool, forming a ten foot circle in every direction.

Ron eagerly asked a third year girl nearby, "anyone put their name in yet?"

"All of the Durmstrang students have but haven't seen anyone from Hogwarts yet." She replied with a shrug.

Excited laughter erupted from behind them and the three saw Fred, George and Lee Jordan hurrying down the staircase laughing excitedly between themselves. 

"Done it!" Fred cried out in an excitedly hushed voice, we just took it. An triumphant look on his face.

"What?" Gasped out a confused, not fully awake Ron. 

"The aging potion, ding brains" George spoke up, "only one drop each, since we only need to be a few months older." He finished as he rubbed his hands together gleefully. 

"And we decided to split the 1000 Galleons between us evenly if one of us does win." Lee Jordan added with a broad gleeful grin.

"I am not sure that will work, you know." Hermione warned in her lecturing voice. "The Headmaster surely took something like this into consideration already." 

Fred, George and Lee just ignored her as the three lined up and as one pulled out a sheet of paper with their names and school on it. With one last look at each other, more than likely to make sure everyone was watching them, the threesome stepped over the age line.  
When nothing happened initially, George and Lee let out cries of triumph. But a moment later before any of them could take a step towards the Goblet, there was a loud **_BANG_** all three students were hurled out of the golden circle as if they had been shot by a canon. The three landed painfully about 10 to 15 feet away, where they lay stunned for the moment. Until there was a loud pop and all three grew long white beards.

This caused the entire entry hall to burst out in laughter, which Fred and George joined in once they had gotten back to their feet and saw the others sporting the beards. Even Lee Jordan joined in on the laughter.

Hermione herself just shook her head and muttered a "I told you" at the same time as another deeply amused voice sounded out.

"I did warn you." Dumbledore chuckled as he exited the great hall and surveyed the situation. With a twinkle in his eye, "off to Madame Pomfrey with the three of you, currently she is dealing with a few others that failed to heed the warning. Although I must say their beards were not as fine as the three of yours." 

Fred, George and Lee headed up to the infirmary, laughing the whole whole way. Harry, Ron and Hermione headed into the great hall to eat breakfast. The decorations in the Great hall had all been changed overnight. Carved pumpkins leered from everywhere, there must have been hundreds of them. Harry and Ron made their way over to Dean and Seamus who were in the middle of a discussion of the Hogwarts students, who were of age that may enter.  
"I heard a rumor that the Warrington, the big sloth looming Slytherin but his name in this morning." Dean spoke up to include Harry in the conversation, Harry just shook his head. "We can't have a Slytherin champion!" Harry angrily replied.  
"Well all the Hufflepuff's are talking about Diggery, but I doubt he would want to risk his good looks." Seamus added with a contemptuous snicker.  
"Guys! Listen!" Hermione said sharply as Angelina Johnson came into the great hall to a chorus of cheers from the entrance hall, sporting a grin as she made her way over. 

"Well I did it." The tall black Gryffindor chaser stated, "I put my name in!" 

"You're kidding!" Ron mumbled around the food in his mouth, sounding somewhat impressed.

"Well I hope you picked Angelina, it would be nice to have a Gryffindor Champion," Hermione said sincerely. 

"Thank you Hermione." Angelina replied with a warm almost flirty smile. She put her hand on Hermione's arm. 

Finishing up their breakfast and making their way out of the great hall. The ran into the Beauxbaton students all lined up in a row coming through the front door.

The trio along with everyone else around the Goblet turned to watch them and allow them to eagerly pass. The beauxbaton students one by one under the direction of Madame Maxime, dropped their names in the goblet. Before Madame Maxime could direct them out, Fleur and others that sat with the Gryffindors the previous night, ran over and flocked around Hermione, who looked confused and a bit stunned at all the attention.

Ron, predictably turned purple at the sight of the foreign students, making gurgling noises. The French students ignored him, instead chatting to Hermione in French,, while Fleur snuggled up against Hermione. 

_"Good morning to you all as well, I would love to spend time with all of you, but sadly I do have class to get to."_ Hermione stated to the Flock, at the flocks distressed sounds, Hermione held up a hand. _"I do have a free period after lunch, I will be in the Library then._ she finished with a smile. The flock nodded their heads sadly and Fleur pulled Hermione to the side. _"Thank you, my lioness, we will be there and they will be on their best behavior, but there are things we must talk of today."_ With that, Fleur gave Hermione a kiss on the cheek and led the others out.

Hermione rolled her eyes as Ron just stared at them with a goofy look on his purple face. "Come on you two, we need to get to class." Without looking she turned and headed off to her classes.

It didn't take long for her to hear the boys running after her, Hermione suppressed her smirk though she did give the boys a harsh look. Ron who was staring wistfully at the retreating backs of the Beauxbatons students. "So 'mione, you are friends with them, help a brother out and hook me up with one of them, preferably the blonde that was hanging all over you." He said with his best manly voice and look, really it was more akin to a kitten trying to emulate a lion, not very impressive at all. 

Hermione wasn't really sure what happened, all she knew was she felt a great rage inside her threatening to burst out. The sound of multiple knees hitting the stone floor, brought Hermione back to her senses as she spotted all the students in the corridor on their knees, many with their necks bared in submission. Hermione glanced at Harry and Ron, shaking her head sadly at the latter before taking off toward her class. 

A few moments later the aggressive Alpha pheromones had dissipated enough for the students to pick themselves back up. Harry glated at Ron as he got back to his feet.

"I keep telling you she's mental, scary but mental." Ron commented. 

Harry just glared harder at Ron, "and you Ron are a git!" He added before heading to his class.

Ron just stared after him and whined out, "Oi! I am almost a man, I have needs, you know!" Grumbling he made his way to class along with Harry. 

Harry and Ron had mostly made up by lunch, although Hermione glared at him whenever she had to interact with him. Even growling a few times, needless to say, Ron kept far away, even deciding not to ask about homework help, throughout the morning classes. Hermione quickly ate her breakfast and left for the library.

Making their way to Divinations, Ron turned to Harry, "bloody mental that one is, she needs a good shag to loosen her up." Ron whispered in a slimy voice to Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes, "a shag by you I assume?" He asked in disbelief. 

"And why not?" Ron whined back, "I am plenty man enough for 'mione, hell for both of them!" 

Harry just shook his head, "whatever, let's just get to class, mate."

Harry continued toward Divinations while Ron followed with a dopey look on his face.

Hermione met up with the Beauxbaton flock waiting for her in the library. Fleur immediately pulled Hermione to one side, upon noticing Hermione's agitated state. _"sweetheart what is the matter?"_ Fluer asked gently, prompting Hermione to relay what happened on the way to class earlier.

. _"What is happening to me Fleur?"_ Hermione whispered back in desperation as Fleur gave her a sympathetic look. 

_"Dearheart, the library is not the place for such a discussion, do you know of a place we can have absolute privacy?_ Fleur softly asked in return.

Hermione thought about it for a few minutes when Fleur watched the light switch on in Hermione's eyes. 

_"The Room of Requirement! I read all about it in Hogwarts: a History"_ Hermione excitedly replied and went to drag Fleur off. 

_"What a moment my love."_ Fleur smiled at Hermione and took a moment to talk to the other girls who looked disappointed that Fleur was going off with Hermione by herself. Once the situation was explained to them in a mixture of French and veela tongues, the flock calmed down.

With that taken care of, Hermione dragged Fleur up to the seventh floor corridor and walked back and forth in front of the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy. Suddenly on the wall across from the portrait a door grew out of the stonework which Hermione quickly opened and pulled Fleur inside.

Inside the room looked like a study nook in a library, a crackling fireplace was against one wall with a couple of comfortable looking cozy chairs on either side of a small round table, already set up with snacks and a tea service. The rest of the room was filled with bookshelves.

Both Fleur and Hermione take a moment to look over the room, both with looks of pure amazement on their faces.

"Wow, this is so much more than I was expecting." Hermione whispered, as if she were afraid of speaking too loud and ruining the magic. 

Fleur nodded her head as she made her way over to the sitting area. Taking a seat in one of the chairs, she sat back and observed Hermione for a moment before getting her attention.

"'Ermione, pleaze zit" Fleur spoke in accented English, which worked as Hermione gravitated to the other chair. 

Once Hermione was seated, Fleur took one of Hermione's hands in hers and gave it a comforting squeeze. Handing Hermione a cup of wildflower herbal tea and taking a sip of her own. 

_"Sadly, we do not have time at the moment for me to give you the complete tale right now but i promise I will tell you everything as soon as I can, perhaps tonight after the halloween feast if possible?"_ Fleur stated kindly before continuing, _"yes I know what is happening, but please my darling be patient till I have time to better explain?" Just know I will do everything I can to help you through this._ Fleur implored Hermione. 

Hermione could only nod at Fleur's sincerity, knowing the other would not lie and try to keep things from her. Hermione gave Fleur a big smile and the two of them chatted about Hogwarts and how it compared to Beauxbatons.

All too soon it was time for Hermione to return to classes, the pair parted with promises to see each other st the naming of the champions later at dinner. Fortunately for Hermione, the rest of her classes went well and she was able to make it to the great hall right as Harry and Ron were getting there. 

The now beardless Fred and George were already at the Gryffindor table when the trio sat down at the table. The twins seemed to be in good spirits after their morning mishap.

"I hope it's Angelina." Fred commented as the trio sat down. 

"So do I" Hermione replied with breathless excitement. Although, personally she felt the tournament was barbaric, she would support her school champion. She smiled happily as the usual group of Beauxbatons students descended on the Gryffindor table, led by onr Fleur Delacour, who took her normal spot next to Hermione.

The Halloween fest seemed to take much longer than it had in past years. Perhaps it was because this was the second feast they had had in as many days, or because most of the students spent most of the fest with necks craning to look at the Goblet of Fire, which had been moved to sit in front of the headmasters seat at the staff table as well as judging how much longer till Dumbledore finished his meal.

Eventually the plates were cleared, and Dumbledore slowly rose to his feet as the chatter in the great hall died away, leaving deathly silence in its wake. 

"Well it appears the Goblet is nearly ready to its decision, " Dumbledore said as he eyed the Goblet for a moment, "I estimate it will be but a minute more. Now when the champion's names are called, I would ask that they come to the front and head through that door." As he pointed to a door beyond the staff table. "There they will receive the instructions for the first task." 

With that, Dumbledore pulled out his wand and in a great sweeping wave. All at once. All the candles were extinguished, except for the ones inside the carved pumpkins. Soon the blue-white flames atop the Goblet suddenly turned red with random sputtering sparks flying out; suddenly a long tongue of flames shot into the air, a charred slip of paper fluttered into Dumbledore's hand. Holding it at arms length to read.

"The champion for Durmstrang will be," he read out in a strong clear voice, "Viktor Krum." 

"No surprise there!" Ron yelled and squealed out, fangirling as the great hall erupted in cheers and applause. Harry and Hermione both rolled their eyes as Viktor Krum rose from the Slytherin table and made his way to the front, pausing to pose for a moment and look at the still cheering and fangirling Rom with s smirk that turned into a scowl when caught sight of Hermione and Fleur entwined at the Gryffindor table. Eventually he made his way through the doorway. 

The great hall queited once more as the Goblet started to spark once more before spitting out another charred slip of paper. 

"The Champion for Beauxbatons, "Dumbledore called out in his strong voice. "Is Fleur Delacour!" 

It was Hermione's turn to squeal and hug Fleur who kissed Hermione's cheek before rising to the cheers and applause of the great hall as she glided up to the staff table, turned and looked out at the students and blew Hermione a kiss and waved before gliding through the door. 

With Fleur now within the other chamber, silence once again descended upon the great hall, excited silence as everyone knew the Hogwarts champion would be next. 

Soon the Goblet was spitting out red sparks once more and another tongue of flame spat out the next name.

"The champion of Hogwarts," Dumbledore continued in his strong firm voice, "is Cedric Diggory!"

"No!" Ron whined and shouted but he was drowned out by the eruption from the Hufflepuff table, all of whom were on their feet cheering and applauding thunderously. Diggery rose from his seat and made his way toward the staff table waving with a massive grin on his face. Pausing to pose as the other champions did with a cheerful wave before he too made his way to the other room.

"Excellent!" Dumbledore started once the excitement had died down. "Now that our champions have been selected, I am sure I can count on the remaining students from both Beauxbatons and Durmstrang will give their champions every ounce of support you can muster." Dumbledore was cut off as loud roaring cheers went up from the remaining Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students filled the great hall. 

But soon the great hall realized something else was distracting Dumbledore, the Goblet of Fire had turned red once more and was shooting out sparks just before a long tongue of flame shot out a fourth charred slip of paper. 

Dumbledore caught the slip automatically and stared at it for several long moments before he called out. _"Harry Potter"_ a note of confusion in his voice.

Harry just sat there blankly as the entire great hall turned and stared at him; there was no applause or cheering, more like an angry buzz that grew in volume as Harry shrunk into himself.

Turning to Ron and Hermione. "I didn't put my name in." Harry said in a blank voice. "You know that!"

Ron just stared at Harry blankly while Hermione quickly reassured him. "Of course you didn't, I believe that. Have McGonagall compare the slip to some of your homework."

"Harry Potter!" Dumbledore impatiently called out again. "Harry! Up here if you please!" 

Hermione reassured him once more as she pushed him to get him going. "Go on Harry." 

Harry made his way towards the staff table, looking like someone trudging to their execution.  
All around him the angry buzzing seemed to grow louder and louder the closer he got to the staff table. Harry could feel hundreds upon hundreds of eyes on him. When he finally made it up to the staff table. A grim faced Dumbledore greeted him,  
"Through the door Potter." 

Harry glanced back at the Gryffindor table but the only one not glaring at him was Hermione, she had an encouraging smile before one of the Beauxbatons students distracted her with a question. He watched as Hermione animatedly answered before he stepped through the door into a room with a crackling fireplace and a number of very curious portraits.

The trio of Fleur Delacour, Cedric Diggory and Viktor Krum all turned when they heard the door open and watched as Harry slipped into the room. As the door clicked closed, Fleur spoke up.  
"What is it? Do zey want us back in ze Hall?”

Harry luckily was saved from having to answer as Ludo Bagman burst into the chamber like a house-elf on a sugar high. However it didn't save him completely as Bagman pulled him forward by the arm towards the others. 

"Extraordinary!" Ludo squealed out while giving Harry's arm a squeeze. "Absolutely extraordinary.  
Gentlemen oh and Lady" he added as he addressed the three by the fireplace. "May I present, as incredible as it may seem, the _fourth_ triwizard champion!" 

The other three champions took a moment to survey the pair, as they tried to comprehend Bagman's rapid words. After a moment or two, Fleur asked, "iz thiz a joke meester Bagman?" Her voice was full of uncertainty. 

"Joke? No, no" Bagman answered in his sugar rush voice. "No! Mr Potter's name just came out of the Goblet of Fire!" He explained in a high pitched rapid excited chatter. 

Viktor looked on with an angry surly look, while Cedric looked completely bewildered. Fleur rolled her eyes and crouched in front of Harry, who was sporting a deer in the headlights look.

 _Fleur, he did not want this, have them compare the slip to his schoolwork, I doubt the will match. He has been through so much and just wanted a normal year._ came Hermione's voice inside her head, causing Fleur to gasp softly before refocusing on Harry. "Monsieur Potter, I know you did not ask for thiz, and I will do everything I can to help you. You have a very good friend in Mademoiselle Granger. She has mentioned how much you just wanted a normal year. I believe her and you." She said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze as she stood back up and turned back to Ludo Bagman. 

“But evidently zair ’as been a mistake, “’E cannot compete. ’E is too young.” she all but snarled into Bagmans face. 

"Well it is amazing," Bagman replied as he rubbed his face, "but, as you know, the age restriction was only added this year as an extra safety precaution. And aa his name has come out of the Goblet...i mean, i don't think he can duck out now at this stage. He's obliged now, rules and all, Harry will just have to do the best he.." 

Bagman was cut off as the door opened to let in Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Crouch, Maxime and Karkaroff. 

"Madame Maxime!" Fleur exclaimed as she strode over to her headmistress. "Zey are saying zat Monsieur Potter is to compete also!" Before descending into rapid french. _"he is too young Madame, and he stated he wanted no part of the tournament. My mate suggest to compare the handwriting to his homework, she doubts they will be the same._

Madame Maxime blinked and narrowed her eyes, _"And who is this mate of your?"_ replied in a tone that brooked no argument

Fleur sighed before replying, _"The name she is known by here is Hermione Granger, I will tell you more back at the carriage, please." Fleur implored with her eyes letting out a relieved breath when her headmistress just nodded._

_Drawing herself up to herself up to her full and considerable height and rounded on the others._

_“What is ze meaning of zis, Dumbly-dorr?” she said imperiously._

_"I would like to know that myself, Dumbledore," Karkaroff spoke up with a steely icy look about his face. " _Two_ Hogwarts champions, no one told me the host school was allowed two champions, or maybe I haven't read the rules carefully enough?" His voice dripping with sarcasm_

_"We were under the impression that your Age Line would keep out younger contestants, Dumbledore,” said Karkaroff, his steely smile still in place, though his eyes were colder than ever. “Otherwise, we would, of course, have brought along a wider selection of candidates from our own schools.”_

_“It’s no one’s fault but Potter’s, Karkaroff,” said Snape softly. His black eyes were alight with malice. “Don’t go blaming Dumbledore for Potter’s determination to break rules. He has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here —”_

_“Thank you, Severus,” said Dumbledore firmly, and Snape went quiet, though his eyes still glinted malevolently through his curtain of greasy black hair._

_Professor Dumbledore turned to Harry, who was still beside Fleur with one of her hands on his shoulder._

_"Did you put your name in the Goblet of Fire, Mr Potter?" He asked in a calm, no nonsense voice._

_"Of course not, I just wanted a regular year for once!" Harry replied with a slightly snappish tone. He was well aware of everyone watching and judging him._

_Dumbledore looked grim as Professor Snape made a sound of disbelief._

_“Did you ask an older student to put it into the Goblet of Fire for you?” said Professor Dumbledore, ignoring Snape._

_"No!" Harry all but shouted._

_Before anyone else could say anything else, Fleur stepped forward, calling on her training as heir of the clan. "Pardon moi, Professor McGonagall, you are his head of house correct? Zherefore you should be the best to confirm if it is indeed Monsieur Potter's handwriting or not, is zat not correct?"_

_Professor McGonagall blinked as if the thought had not occurred to her, before snatching the charred slip from Dumbledore's hand._

_"Albus! Even you should be able to tell this is not young Mr Potter's handwriting. And this school name, Wool's Academy, Mr. Potter would have no way of knowing anything about it." She shrieked out before slapping the slip against Dumbledore's chest._

_Harry stood shell shocked as his head of house stood up for him for once. And he would have to thank Fleur and Hermione as soon as he could. His shock caused him to miss Professor Snape's expression upon hearing the school name._

_Karkaroff looked none too happy about this, and made his displeasure known._

_“You will set up the Goblet of Fire once more, and we will continue adding names until each school has two champions. It’s only fair, Dumbledore.”_

_“But Karkaroff, it doesn’t work like that,” said Bagman. “The Goblet of Fire’s just gone out — it won’t reignite until the start of the next tournament —”_

_“— in which Durmstrang will most certainly not be competing!” exploded Karkaroff. “After all our meetings and negotiations and compromises, I little expected something of this nature to occur! I have half a mind to leave now!”_

_"Empty threat, Karkaroff,” growled a voice from near the door. “You can’t leave your champion now. He’s got to compete. They’ve all got to compete. Binding magical contract, like Dumbledore said. Convenient, eh?”_

_Moody said quietly. “It’s very simple, Karkaroff. Someone put Potter’s name in that goblet knowing he’d have to compete if it came out.”_

_"If anyone’s got a reason to complain, it’s Potter,” growled Moody, “but, funny thing I don’t hear him saying a word"_

_“Maybe someone’s hoping Potter is going to die for it,” said Moody, with the merest trace of a growl._

_An extremely tense silence followed these words. Ludo Bagman, who was looking very anxious indeed, bounced nervously up and down on his feet and said, “Moody, old man . . . what a thing to say!”_

_"We all know Professor Moody considers the morning wasted if he hasn’t discovered six plots to murder him before lunchtime,” said Karkaroff loudly. “Apparently he is now teaching his students to fear assassination too. An odd quality in a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, Dumbledore, but no doubt you had your reasons.”_

_“Imagining things, am I?” growled Moody. “Seeing things, eh? It was a skilled witch or wizard who put the boy’s name in that goblet. They hoodwinked a very powerful magical object! It would have needed an exceptionally strong Confundus Charm to bamboozle that goblet into forgetting that only three schools compete in the tournament. If I had to guess, I would say they submitted Potter’s name under a fourth school, to make sure he was the only one in his category."_

_“You seem to have given this a great deal of thought, Moody,” said Karkaroff coldly, “and a very ingenious theory it is although of course, I heard you recently got it into your head that one of your birthday presents contained a cunningly disguised basilisk egg, and smashed it to pieces before realizing it was a carriage clock. So you’ll understand if we don’t take you entirely seriously."_

_“There are those who’ll turn innocent occasions to their advantage,” Moody retorted in a menacing voice. “It’s my job to think the way Dark wizards do, Karkaroff as you ought to remember.”_

_“How this situation arose, we do not know,” said Dumbledore, speaking to everyone gathered in the room. “It seems to me, however, that we have no choice but to accept it. Both Cedric and Harry have been chosen to compete in the tournament. This, therefore, they will do, if anyone has an alternative suggestion, I would be delighted to hear it"_

_When no one spoke up after several moments,  
“Well, shall we crack on, then?” he said, rubbing his hands together and smiling around the room. “Got to give our champions their instructions, haven’t we? Barty, want to do the honors?”_

_“The first task is designed to test your daring,” Crouch told Harry, Cedric, Fleur, and Viktor, “so we are not going to be telling you what it is. Courage in the face of the unknown is an important quality in a wizard, very important."_

_"The first task will take place on November the twenty-fourth, in front of the other students and the panel of judges. “The champions are not permitted to ask for or accept help of any kind from their teachers to complete the tasks in the tournament. The champions will face the first challenge armed only with their wands. They will receive information about the second task when the first is over. Owing to the demanding and time-consuming nature of the tournament, the champions are exempted from end-of-year tests.”_

_Mr. Crouch turned to look at Dumbledore. “I think that’s all, is it, Albus?”_

_“I think so,” said Dumbledore, who was looking at Mr. Crouch with mild concern. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like to stay at Hogwarts tonight, Barty?”_

_“No, Dumbledore, I must get back to the Ministry,” said Mr. Crouch. “It is a very busy, very difficult time at the moment, I’ve left young Weatherby in charge. Very enthusiastic he is although a little overenthusiastic, if truth be told.”_

_"You’ll come and have a drink before you go, at least?” said Dumbledore._

_He watched as Madame Maxime and Professor Karkaroff led their perspective champion out through the great hall._

_“Harry, Cedric, I suggest you go up to bed,” said Dumbledore, smiling at both of them. “I am sure Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are waiting to celebrate with you, and it would be a shame to deprive them of this excellent excuse to make a great deal of mess and noise.”_

_Harry glanced at Cedric, who nodded, and they left together._


	5. The Hatching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Fleur finally get to have their talk, with unexpected results, the first task and the challenge of getting Yule Ball dates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again parts of this chapter form the Goblet of Fire book. I still don’t own anything Harry Potter outside this plot.  
> Also there will be a bit of smut in this chapter, I have marked that section so it may be skipped by those opposed.
> 
> Many thanks to the wonderful [Bozie_Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozie_Quinn/pseuds/Bozie_Quinn), who helped with the inspiration for much of this chapter as well as act3d as my beta reader

# 

The Hatching

The week following the choosing of the champions, ended up being stressful in many ways. To start with no one in the school believed Harry had not somehow found a way to put his own name into the Goblet of Fire. 

First of all, the Gryffindors were treating Harry like some kind of hero! Then there were the other houses, Syltherin was more obnoxious than normal, Draco somehow made himself buttons that flashed between "Support Cedric Diggory - the real Hogwarts Champion" in luminous red letters before flashing to display "Potter Stinks" in glowing green letters, the buttons had spread to all the houses with the Hufflepuff house all wearing them, even a large portion of Ravenclaw house could be spotted wearing the buttons. 

The worst was, when Hermione had spotted Ron Weasley, Seamus Finnagan, Cormac McLaggen and Dean Thomas all wearing the badges sitting at one end of the Gryffindor table. Her heart broke when she heard Ron taunting Harry about being such a glory hound as to enter without his best friend. 

And to top it all off, Hermione had been only able to see Fleur during mealtimes and they did not get much time to converse as Madame Maxime had her busy with classes and training. Fortunately it was on Friday that she got a chance to spend time with Fleur between classes, the duo had been making their way to potions and making plans to finally get together over the weekend. 

As they rounded the corner to the potions classroom, Hermione heard two shouts one of  
_"Furnunculus!"_ and the other _“Densaugeo!”_ something slammed into Hermione, slamming her into the wall. Just before she lost consciousness, Hermione swore she heard a bird like shriek.

When she awoke later in one of the beds in the hospital wing, she had blinking a few times to adjust to the bright light, drawing Madam Pomfrey's attention who bustled over to give Hermione another check over and shrink her teeth back to her normal size, but Hermione let her continue on a few more moments until they were perfect. She blushed when she caught sight of Fleur sitting in a chair beside her bed, reading. 

With Madam Pomfrey giving her final instructions before discharging her. Hermione nodded to all the instructions and jumped to her feet.

"Hello Fleur, you didn't have to wait for me." Hermione let out a chipper greeting, which startled Fleur and caused her to to fumble and drop the book she had been reading. Wandlessly and wordlessly, Hermione caught and levitated the book back into Fleur's hands. Fleur, who was staring at Hermione like she was a ghost. For several minutes all Fleur could do was scoop Hermione into a hug and hold her like Fleur's life depended on it. 

"Mon petit amour," Fleur started out in english before dissolving into french. _"I was so worried you were seriously hurt."_

Hermione buried her face in Fleur's hair, inhaling Fleur's jasmine and ocean scent, she rubbed the blonde's back in a calming manner. Once Fleur started to calm down, Hermione continued to hold her and whisper in soft soothing French to the blonde.  
_"I am safe and healthy now, it's ok now. Calm down Fleur. It's ok, just calm for me darling."_ she repeated over and over until she felt Fleur relax in her arms. 

Hermione guided Fleur back till the Blonde Veela was perched on the edge of the hospital cot. Hermione sat down beside her on the cot, leaning against Fleurs side, Hermione took a deep breath before asking _" Fleur, what happened?"_

Fleur pressed a light kiss to the top of Hermione's bushy hair before releasing a breath. _" Well, as you hopefully remember, the flock was escorting you to your potions class. When we turned the corner, a spell hit you and knocked you into the wall with enough force to leave you unconscious. Camille nearly took that foolish boy's head off when she saw you like that. Then professeur Snape tried to pin it all on Harry and Ron. But Josephine had sent a patronus to Madame Maxime and using her and Colette's memories, Snape was made to properly punish the repulsive Malfoy. He lost house points and now has detention with Professeur Hagrid in the forest tonight. This bully Malfoy was ranting about when his father hears about this."_ Fleur made some very unpleasant faces when recounting her story, especially during the parts she talked about the Malfoys.  
_" Then there was the weighing of the wands and that unpleasant gossip-monger Skeeter. We had to deal with stupid publicity and why they would let that woman on the grounds is beyond me. "_ Fleur huffed out while Hermione just absorbed everything that was said.

 _"You really don't like the Malfoys do you?"_ Hermione asked after a moment. Looking at Fleur with curiosity.

Fleur nodded, " _No, but it is nothing to discuss here. Please darling, I promise to tell you, just not in the hospital wing._ "

Fleur asked so earnestly, all Hermione could do was nod in agreement. Before smiling widely, showing off her now perfect smile. _" Are we still on to meet tomorrow for the talk?"_

Fleur smiled in return and nodded, "Oui, after breakfast?" 

Hermione nodded eagerly, "it's a date!" And giggled at the blush that erupted across Fleur's gorgeous face.

The next day being Saturday, Hermione was up and eager to get to breakfast, although the boys were not up, and Hermione had gotten tired of waiting for them. So she ended up heading down to the great hall with Ginny. After the pair sat at the Gryffindor table and chatted as they caught up with each other and the school gossip. 

It wasn't too much after that, that Madame Maxime led the students from Beauxbatons into the great hall and towards the Ravenclaw table, but as usual Fleur and her flock broke off and descended on the Gryffindor table. Dishes scattering on the stone floor, goblets being dropped and other similar incidents, followed the flock as they moved to all sit around Hermione with Fleur taking her normal position beside Hermione. For her part, Hermione just rolled her eyes and loaded Fleur's plate with fruit and cottage cheese that she knew the blonde liked for breakfast. 

Fleur just hugged Hermione tight as she watched with a beaming smile. Once Fleur had finished eating, Hermione turned to Ginny, "whenever the sleeping duo get out of bed, tell them they are on their own for their assignments, I have plans and don't know when they will be done. And before you ask, I will not tell you what they are."

Ginny actually pouted at being told no as the Beauxbaton flock rose as one, Hermione pulled along with them. Once the group reached the entry hall, Fleur gave some last minute instructions to the rest of the flock before Hermione and herself broke off for the 7th floor corridor and the entrance to the room of requirements. 

There Fleur being a quick study and confirming with Hermione, the correct process to open the room, paced back and forth in front of the tapestry of Barnabus the Barmy, the french student let out a breath of relief when the door appeared.

Smiling at each other, Fleur and Hermione opened the door to a vastly different room than it was last time. While the sitting area was still there along with a few bookshelves in the sitting area; it was the rest of the room that took their breath away, beyond the glow cast by the fireplace, shadows seemed to fill the room with the creaking of branches echoing as they swayed in a breeze.

 _"Fleur, what did you wish for? Why is there a forest in the room?"_ Hermione squeaked out as Fleur guided her over to the sitting area. 

Fluer pushed her into one of the seats, _"I just asked for a private place to have this talk, I do not know why it is ...or maybe I do!"_ Fleur exclaimed before darting off to examine the trees more closely. With a bewildered look, Fleur returned to the sitting area and sat down with an explosive sigh. _"Now why would the room make a copy of the Hatching Grounds in Marseille?"_ Fleur muttered to herself.

 _"The Hatching Grounds?"_ Hermione questioned having heard the muttered words and not able to stop her question.

Fleur blinked as she stared at Hermione a long moment before pulling her wand and vowing, " _I swear on my magic that everything I am about to tell you is the truth as I know it."_ A gold glow surrounded Fleur as her vow was accepted. Putting the wand away, Fleur turned to face Hermione. Taking a breath to settle her nerves, Fleur got started before they got too much for her.

 _"The Hatching Grounds are a sacred forest in Marseille where young Veela hatchlings are taken to undergo their advancement first to a fledgling and later from a fledgling to an adult Veela. Or the Hatching as we Veela call it_ " Fleur paused to see how Hermione was taking the news so far. 

Hermione sat there silently as she processed what was said and guessed at the parts not mentioned yet. Then her eyes grew large as a thought pushed its way to the front of her mind. 

_"Fleur are you trying to say that I am going into this Hatching? That I am actually a Veela?"_ Her voice raising as her rant picked up steam, _"And you never planned to tell me at all did you?"_ Hermione was now standing in front of Fleur, ranting and raving at her. **"Next you will try to tell me my muggle dentist parents are Veela as well?"** the rest of Hermione's rant was cut off as Fleur pulled the Brunette into her lap and silenced her with a kiss. 

Both Fleur and Hermione felt an electrical shock run through their bodies at the kiss, both girls eyes turning gold, Fleur just held Hermione close and cuddled as she addressed Heemione's rant. To test if Hermione had taken another step or if it was a fluke Fleur deliberately spoke in the Veela tongue.

 **"No, I never wanted to lie to one of my mates. I did not agree with the orders but they came directly from my grandmother, Penthesilea and she is the current clan leader along with my Mother Appoline, who handles most of the daily tasks.** " Fleur paused to give Hermione another soft kiss. 

**"The Grangers are not part of the clan, but they were very close with your parents. They are squibs that your parents trusted and arranged for the Grangers to take care of you should something happen to them."**

Hermione had tears running down her cheeks as she snuggled with Fleur. She gave a faint ghost of a smile as Fleur lovingly wiped them away. 

**"So all the summer trips to Marseille?** Hermione quietly asked in the Veela tongue.

 **"Part of the agreement between your parents and the Grangers. It was so you could go through your Veela training to become an adult Veela when the time came. Regrettably, since everyone thought you were simply a muggle-born, the Clan leaders decided it would be best if you did not remember your times in Marseille, outside of a loving summer adventure with your muggle parents."** Fleur finished with a sad tone, making it clear she did not support that plan.

It took Hermione a few moments to process all of that before she could put her thoughts into words.  
**"So what happens now?** Hermione asked in a breathless voice. **"Are you going to make me forget again?**

 **"No, my love. Even if I wanted to, I believe it is too late at this point. Your Thrall is awake and very active. I believe we will need to complete the 2nd Hatching otherwise you could be a danger to yourself and others.** Fleur replied in a calm collected voice, trying to portray just how serious this could become if the 2nd Hatching wasn't completed. 

Hermione swallowed with her suddenly dry throat. **"A..a..nd w..what w..ould th..at en..tail?** she stammered out questioningly.

Fleur couldn't help the giggle that slipped out, but quickly schooled her expression at the deathglare Hermione threw at her. The blonde veela gestured to the forest. **"I believe that is why the forest appeared. To complete the 2nd hatching. A hunt in the old ways.**

Hermione nodded and then frowned slightly, **"The old ways?** " She asked curiously.

It was Fleur's turn to nod. " **Yes, as the Veela have in the past, no wand, no magic, no clothes even, just yourself and your veela senses. As nature intended it."** Fleur could help but coo at the adorable blush upon Hermione's face. 

Hermione was redder than an angry Weasley at this point. " **You mean I have to do it naked, and what will be the target?** " Hermione squeaked out in a surprisingly mouse like tone.

Fleur let out a soft chuckle, " **The Fledgling always hunts an elder of the clan in the 2nd hatching. Or in the case that is not possible, for any reason, they must hunt one that has gone through it. So in this situation, I am afraid my darling you will be hunting me down, in the buff.** " Fleur finished with a waggle of her eyebrows.

Hermione erupted into another deep flaming blush and buried her face in her hands. She was brought out of it as she felt long slender fingers unbuttoning her school robe. She let out a scawk and batted at the Fleur's hands, " **what do you think you are doing Fleur?"**

Fleur just chuckled, " **darling, this may be the last chance we get for quite awhile with everything going on with the tournament and all. So we best take advantage of the chance and no sense putting it off. Think of it as a school assignment** " Fleur smiled warmly when she saw the fire of determination enter Hermione's eyes.

Hermione took a deep breath, Fleur's logical explanation going a long way towards calming her down as well as convincing her of the necessity of the plan. With a deep breath, and a resolved face, Hermione hopped from Fleur's lap, surprising the blonde Veela. Under Fleur's surprised gaze, Hermione started to complete what Fleur started, her own fingers working to unbutton her robes before Fleur jumped in to assist in baring all of Hermione.

******Smut ahead******

As the last of Hermione's clothing fluttered to the ground, Fleur was surprised when she felt Hermione start to work on her powder blue robes, pausing to ask. " **The hunted, are they also not hunted as nature intended?** " 

Fleur swallowed and slowly nodded, letting out a breathless, "Oui." Hermuone's answering smile made Fleur melt as those fingers continued their task of stripping Fleur bare as the day she was hatched.

Both girls took a moment to examine the other. Fleur let her gaze travel Hermione's body from her feet upwards to Hermione's wide hips, over her mons covered in curly brown hair and, up to the younger girl's full breasts. Fleur noted that Hermione's inner veela was already working enhancing Hermione,'s bust. It was fuller, more prominent than Fleur remembered from this last summer. Those orbs were capped with dusky pink nipples, which were hardening in the cool air. Fleur allowed her gaze to travel up the rest of the way to Hermione's face and the smirk upon the other girl's lips and the dark gold eyes filled with want and desire for herself, judging by how they moved over her own bare form.

For her part, Hermione felt like she was in heaven as she took in Fleur's Goddess-like appearance. Wide hips with a sinfully gorgeous arse that wouldn't quit, up to Fleur's perfect teardrop shaped large bust, a tad larger than Hermione's own breasts, capped by rosey pink crinkled hard nipples and on up to Fleur's face with a desire filled smirk and gold overtaking the blue of Fleur's eyes as Fleurs own desire rose.

Fleur took a breath to regain control of her desires, only partially successful. " **Now, wait 5 minutes then come find me. If you are not able to find me within an hour, then the trail is over and you will have to wait a year before trying it again. I have faith in you though, trust yourself and your instincts and they will guide you true.** " Fleur finished with a passionate kiss to Hermione that momentarily distracted the brunette witch allowing Fleur to escape into the forest, unfortunately it also meant Fleur breathed in a lungful of Hermione's parchment and pine pheromone scent. 

Fleur could feel herself growing erect as she darted through the replica forest, she was curious to see if the nests were in this replica and took a round-about path towards them to help give Hermione a workout with this hunt. When the blonde veela reached the nesting area, Fleur was pleased to see about half a dozen large bird nest style beds of boughs, reeds and moss spread around the area. Picking on of the mostly concealed beds, Fleur settled down and waited for Hermione to find her. 

Hermione, while she awaited the required time, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, getting a lungful of Fleur's Freesia and Lavender scent. Focusing on that scent for several moments, Hermione felt her groin tighten and her clit tingling and swelling. Upon opening her eyes at the end of the five minutes, Hermione saw a red pulsing thread leading into the forest, along with a green and black thread trailing off to nowhere. 

Hermione examined the three threads curiously before inhaling and examining the forest. Fleur's scent led her one way and as she started to follow it, her heart tugged her back in the direction of the red thread. After a few more attempts, Hermione gave into her instincts and followed the red thread. 

With a smirk on her lips, Hermione silently made her through the forest, hopping up on the tree branches and skipping from one tree to the next. A few times, Hermione had to stop to reorient herself. Running a hand through her hair, Hermione almost gasped out loudly when she noticed her talons were covered in downy feathers. Evidently her focus on Fleur and the thread had allowed her inner veela to start a transformation with conscious thought. Her veela side preened as Hermione took a few moments to examine how far the transformation had gone. Hermione's body was covered in a fine silky down of red feathers, her hands and feet had become talons. She felt weight shifting on her back and craned her neck to see, smirking when she caught sight of a majestic pair of wings with white feathers that darkened to red at the tip. 

Shaking herself out of her introspection, Hermione used her new senses and features to follow the thread, scaling higher in the trees as she followed it. 

Hermione paused when she caught Fleur's scent coming from below her. Dropping to her haunches, Hermione tilted her head in an avian manner as she studied the forest below. She could make out what looked like human sized nests scattered about the forest floor. Biting her bottom lip as she made her observations, Hermione realized suddenly that the red thread was tugging her downwards towards a semi concealed nest. 

Carefully, Hermione creeped her way over until she was situated above Fleur, as to not make any sound that would give her away. Satisfied, Fleur was still unaware of her position, Hermione jumped out of the tree onto the prone form of Fleur who let out a shocked cry before the pair of naked Veela rolled around in and out of the nest. 

Hermione, who was still new to her veela form, ended up on all fours with Fleur nibbling on her neck. Hermione felt her eyes go wide when she felt something long, thick and very hard poking into her arse. 

" **Fleur, baby what are you poking me with?** " Hermione asked in a breathless pant, as she felt her clit tingle and twitch and her core grow slick with want. 

Fleur giggled and adjusted her hips, lining herself up and slid home with thrust of her hips, letting out a moan as Hermione's warm slick tightness enveloped her hard alpha cock. After a few more thrusts, Fleur leaned over Hermione's back and bit down where Hermione's neck and shoulder met. 

" **That is my cock my love, my status as an alpha determines if I am the fucker or like you are darling, the fuckee. It is so I can give my sweet omega mates bellies full of hatchlings.** " Fleur let out another moan as she felt her knot swell and batter against Hermione's entrance and slip inside after a few more thrusts, tying them together. 

Hermione moaned and felt her teeth extend and the urge to bite something growing inside her. An urge that grew as Fleur caresses and thugged on her nipples. 

******End Smut******

The pair were so lost in each other and their mating, neither one noticed the green and black threads, which were now mixed with red solidifying as something was pulled into the room with them. 

Narcissa's spirit body appeared on a low branch, the older blonde was confused as to how and why she was here when she felt another presence on the branch with her. Turning, Narcissa felt her mouth drop in shock as she looked at her imprisoned sister Bellatrix. Quickly pulling her sister into a hug, Narcissa emotionally babbled.

"Bella, what are we doing here, how did we get here and where is here exactly?"

Bellatrix shrugged, "I have no idea Cissamine, last thing I remember I was the cold stone walls of Azkaban, and suddenly I am here. " Bellatrix quietly replied as she took a look around. "Ohh, what is that?" She asked, pointing to the green and red thread headed to the forest floor along from where it connected with Narcissa's heart. 

Narcissa touched the thread and looked at Bellatrix, "you have one as well." Bellatrix blinked and looked down, sure enough there was a red and black thread extending from her chest. Curiously, Bellatrix gave it a slight tug. "Strange, it's like something is tethering us to this place, almost as if..."

Bellatrix turned back to Narcissa with wide excited eyes, "Are these be threads to our true mates? Remember what that veela told me 16 years ago?" Bellatrix asked with hope in her eyes. 

Narcissa feels hope filling her for the first time in 15 years, letting her eyes follow the thread down to the forest floor. "Bella, let's go find them!" Grabbing Bella's hand in excitement as Bellatrix nodded and as one the two jumped from the branch. 

As the duo landed on the forest floor, hand in hand they followed the threads to a pair of Goddesses in the midst of having carnal relations. 

With wide eyes the sisters sat on the edge of a nearby nest to watch and appreciate their two personal Goddesses. 

With Fleur still knotted in her, Hermione suddenly gasped as she felt a tugging at her heart. 

" **Fleur did you feel that?"** Hermione asked as she craned her neck to look around until she was able to spot the other two threads. 

" **The tugging? What is that?** " Fleur responded in breathless curiosity. The blonde veela also looked around, trying to determine the source of the tugging. 

" **The threads my love, can you not see or feel them Fleur?** " Hermione whispered back. 

Fleur blinked and looked down her own chest, eyes widening as she spotted the threads. The red thread that was in the midst of turning gold, that connected her to Hermione. That one she expected, it would turn solid gold once the pair completed the bonding. But what threw her were the red and green thread as well the red and black thread that twisted about each other before the braided thread split into two seperate braided threads that connected to herself and Hermione. 

Fleur felt her knot slip from Hermione as she was shocked by this discovery. While Fleur was pondering what this coukd mean, Hermione slipped from under Fleur, twisted around behind her and bit down on Fluer's exposed neck.

Fleur let out a cry as she pushed back into Hermione. "Merdre!" Fleur exclaimed as she felt Hermione's own large thick cock pressing into her back. Fleur took a deep breath before whining out. 

" **I am so sorry Hermione, I forced myself on another alpha. Clan law is clear on this, we must fight for the position of Clan Alpha or I will be banished from the clan.** " Fleur sobbed out, totally disgusted with herself.

Hermione kissed and licked the bite on Fleur's neck. Humming into Fleur's neck, the ever logical Hermione asked. " **and what would happen to the loser of the fight Fleur?** "

Fleur felt like she was punched in the gut with that question. " **Darling, the fight is one to the death.** " 

Hermione stiffened and gasped as she felt sorrow and pain through the other threads. After a few moments, Hermione softly asked, " **Fleur, what if we decided to complete the bond?** " 

Fleur was knocked for a loop by the surge of hope and love that Hermione sent through the bond, that soothed the fear she was feeling as well as fear transmitted by all three of the bonds. After recovering enough to answer, Fleur gathered herself to answer.

" **That might work, since we are both alpha's we would be expected to find omega's to sire hatchling with. But the flock and the Clan would accept it my love.** " Fleur answered after a moment.

Fleur could feel Hermione shift behind her just before Hermione asked. " **But do you accept it Fleur?** " 

******Smut ahead******

Fleur felt want and desire hitting her from three different sources and responded by spreading her thighs and exposing her own dripping core to Hermione and responding with simple "Qui!"

Hermione smirked at the answer and lined up her cock with Fluers core, smearing her throbbing cockhead with Fleur's essence before she slowly pushed her thick shaft into her lover with a want filled moan. 

Ever so slowly, she penetrated Fleur, giving Fleur time to adjust to her size. Once Hermione was fully hilted into Fleur, the blonde veela squeezed Hermione's girth with her velvety inner walls as she let out a moan of her own. 

" **Fuckkk, harder baby.. fuck me like you mean it!** " Fleur moaned out in encouragement.

Hermione responded to those words beautifully. She let go of Fleur's hips with one hand to caress and fondle Fleur's dangling breast as her hips started pumping her large length in and out of Fleur with hard smooth thrusts that made Hermione's swelling knot slap against Fleur's neither lips with each hard thrust.

" **Ohh fuck, Fleur you feel so good, so tight. I can feel my knot forming!** " Hermione gasped out with a moan. 

The only sounds that filled the nesting area were that of flesh slapping together as Hermione forced her swelling knot against Fleur's core with each thrust until the swelling knot slipped into Fleur's dripping passage and swelled to its full size.

Fleur let out loud passionate cries and moans in harmony with Hermione's own moans as Hermione dropped her other hand down to start jerking Fleur's cock off. 

Fleur's eyes rolled up in her head from the pleasure overload. The knotted pair didn't last long as soon Fleur and Hermione came together, completing their bond as the red and gold thread flashed and changed to a completely golden thread.

Nor were they aware of the powerful mutual orgasm sending a wave of energy out, a wave that crashed into and through the watching Narcissa and Bellatrix.

The pair had enough time to yell out "Fuck!" As both erupted into orgasm, feeding the loop and helping to make the tenuous bond between the four more solid. For a long several minutes, the two alphas and the two omegas were caught in the loop until the loop grew too powerful for the quartet. 

Fleur and Hermione caught sight of a pale Blonde and a pale raven haired figure before they passed out with the words, "our omegas, we will be united soon." 

Narcissa and Bellatrix heard those words and felt their hearts swell just before whatever brought them there was cut and they were thrust back into their real bodies.

******End Smut******

Fleur and Hermione awoke sometime later to voices marvelling as they came closer.

"Oi!I thought you guys had something cool to show me, so why are we in a forest then?" Came a whiny sounding voice.

"We planned to but we've never seen the come and go room like this, we need to explore it" responded two voices talking in unison. 

Fleur growled softly as Hermione and herself scrambled to their feet, Fleur instinctively pushing the naked Hermione behind her.

A few minutes later Ron, Fred and George Weasley stumbled into the clearing where their nest was at. 

Ron spotting Hermione behind Fleur snapped out without thinking as normal "mione just let me show you how a man can treat you. You don't need a bloody bird, I've got quite the mast." Grabbing his crotch and making a thrusting gesture.

Fleur growled louder and started to take a step forward but was stopped by Hermione's hand in her shoulder. "I got this babe." Hermione muttered in Fleur's ear as she moved to stand beside Fleur, one hand grabbing Fleur's cock and stroking it to fullness. 

"If that was true Ronald, I highly doubt it could compare to our 'masts'." Hermione smirked as she displayed both her own and Fleur's cocks. Watching as Ron turned red, then purple before he opened his mouth again to make would be some scathing comment, as he always did. It was his defensive tactic, but this time Hermione was having none of Ron's insecurities, and let them ruin what had been a glorious day in her mind. 

Next thing anyone knew, there was a loud crack as Hermione's fist connected with Ron's chin with a vicious uppercut, knocking the redhead out.

Hermione attempted to apologize to Fred and George but neither one would look at her or Fleur and kept calling what she did "Wicked!"

Hermione smirked, "if a word of what happened here gets around the school, you two will be next." Hermione all but growled out. 

The twins took a step back with their hands raised in surrender. "Not a peep from us, Marauders honor" the pair spoke in unison.

Hermione nodded and leaned back into Fleur when the other woman wrapped her arms around Hermione.

A groan interrupted Hermione's glaring at the twins, causing all four to turn and look at Ron. Hermione's expression turned thunderous as she seethed and glared holes in Ron.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley. How dare you! First being a complete prat to your supposed best friend and now this." Hermione shrieked out as she ground her foot into Ron's crotch."sort yourself out, as it stands now no help on your assignments this year." 

With one last grind down on Ron's crotch, Hermione turned and wrapped her arm around Fleur and led her back to the sitting area to get dressed, grab their wands and then leave the room as Ron whined and groaned on the ground.

The next few weeks turned out to be hectic, especially when Hermione learned that the first task involved dragons. Between her own course work, research to help Harry with the task, not to mention her own time spent with Fleur practicing to get her thrall under control. There were times Hermione almost resorted to using the time turner again.

Ron still hadn't come to his senses, but at least he wasn't trying to use Hermione as his personal owl to communicate with Harry. Hermione told Harry over and over again that his real true friends stood with him, and that Ron had a lot of growing to do before he should consider renewing his friendship with Ron. By Harry's expression, she didn't expect Harry to take her advice.

Currently they were studying in the library trying to work out a strategy for Harry, when without thinking Hermione summoned the book on repelling charms to her hand. Harry watched with wide eyes as the heavy tome nearly took off the creepy Viktor Krum's head. 

This of course, upset the surly Bulgarian, who turned and stalked over to the table, blasting out alpha pheromones in his angry displeasure. Viktor's dominant alpha pheromones didn't seem to affect Hermione at all but had Harry panting and desperate for a place to hide. He bared his neck in submission, but he was able to watch as Hermione calmly turned the pages before crinkling her nose. 

Giving Viktor an unimpressed look before giving a cutting, "God don't they teach you to bathe in Durmstrang?" As she lifted an eyebrow and turned her focus to Viktor. This only made Viktor get right in Hermione's face in an attempt to make her submit, but it only ended up making Hermione's eyes turn gold, as she gave a growl of her own and her teeth started to elongate. 

This was the scene that Fleur walked in on.

“Merde! What ees going on here?” Fleur asked in her heavily accented english, as the French Veela took in Hermione and Viktor growling at each other with poor Harry trying to crawl under the table. Fleur made her way to Hermione’s side and hugged her Alpha mate, distracting Hermione, who for her part just nuzzled into Fleur’s neck.

Viktor, realizing the dynamic had changed with the arrival of a fellow champion, gave one last huff before stalking off with a huff. Hermione watched him stalking off and couldn’t help herself, adding, “And take your gaggle of giggling Floozies with you.” 

The trio of Harry, Hermione and Fleur, sat down and worked through repelling charms that would protect their task outfits, Suddenly Hermione got a gleam in her eyes. “That’s it Harry! The summoning charm! let us use your strengths and you are one of the best flyers I have seen.” Hermione rushed out in an excited voice.

Fleur sniffed in mock hurt which caused Hermione to hug her, and whisper in french to her. “ _Baby, i know you are a great flyer but Harry needs the confidence boost and being on a broom will only help him. besides I thought we had you strategy down my love._ ” 

Fleur purred at Hermione’s words and nodded, both Hermione and herself working with Harry on the _Accio_ summoning charm. 

The following fortnight passed quickly and Harry was much more confident with his progress with the summoning charm, Hermione had him practicing with pillows in the Gryffindor common room daily until he was proficient with it. 

Finally the day of the first task arrived and after a sullen breakfast in the great hall, Harry followed by Hermione who was snuggled against Fleur made their way down to the transformed Quidditch pitch. Fleur and Harry entered the champion’s tent to see Cedric pacing and an extremely surly looking Viktor within the tent. Hermione smiled at Harry and disentangled herself from Fleur and gave Harry a hug. “Good luck Harry, I know you will do great. “ 

There was a flash of light from a camera as Rita Skeeter came striding into the tent, “Ahh you love.” her quick-quote quills scratching away on a piece of parchment. Two things happened next, Rita’s quills and parchment burst into a small fireball and the camera in Bozo the cameraman’s hand exploded before both were unceremoniously pushed from the tent seemingly by nothing. Hermione slipped out of the tent after giving Fluer a hug and soft kiss, “Good luck to you as well,” before she went out to the stands to watch the task with her fellow Gryffindors.

Viktor was the first champion called and he went with a brute force approach, battering the Dragon with spells; while it did allow him to retrieve his egg in a reasonable time, it did cause the dragon to trample it’s own nest, destroying the real precious dragon eggs.

Cedric was up next and he went with misdirection, transfiguring boulders in the arena into animals. The dragon didn’t seem too impressed but Cedric was able to retrieve his egg, although with a few war wounds from a rather vicious tail slash. 

Fleur came out next to the cheers of the Beauxbatons students, as well as Hermione’s cheers. Fleur waved to the crowd and Hermione heard Cormac snickering to his friends , “What is she going to do? Seduce the dragon? I’ll be there to comfort her after she gets embarrassed and humiliated. “ To the laughter of his friends as he grabbed his crotch for emphasis on how he planned to comfort her. Hermione seethed and was ready to defend her woman, actually started to move towards Cormac before realizing she was being foolish. Fleur tapped deep into her Veela side and bewitched the dragon, charming it to sleep and the repellent charms Fleur studied with Hermione and Harry came in useful when the sleeping dragon snorted out a burst of flame, leaving her unscathed as she retrieved her egg and carried it out of the arena as if was a bebe. 

Finally it was Harry’s turn, and of course he would get the orniest dragon around. Hermione cheered and gasped out as Harry hid and dodged the Dragon’s strikes as he waited for his summoning charm to work. When his firebolt finally did arrive, Harry nimbly leaped onto it and wove his way up and around the dragon , which broke it’s tether to chase Harry, but it’s bulk was no match for Harry’s nimble quickiness on the broom and he swooped down to snatch the egg up just before dragon managed to nick his shoulder, to the cheers of the Gryffindor section.

After the task the scores where as follows:  
Fleur Delacour: 45 points  
Harry Potter: 40 Points  
Viktor Krum: 40 Points  
Cedric Diggery: 38 Points

Later in the week following the first task, Professor McGonagoll announced to her Gryffindor that this year as part of the Triwizard tournament, that Hogwarts would be hosting a yule ball on December 25th and as a champion, Harry would have to attend with a date. 

Harry had never seen Hermione acting so girly after the announcement, little did he know it was because as soon as the announcement was given, Fleur immediately dragged Hermione off to the Room of Requirements.

Once inside, the pair proceeded to snog each other senseless before Fleur pulled back and softly said. “Mon amour, will you do me the honor of accompanying me to ze Yule Ball?”

Hermione couldn’t resist teasing her mate, “hmm I am not sure, Viktor keeps hanging around the library.” she tapped her chin with a nail pretending to think about it. 

“Of course I will go to the Yule ball with you my silly mate. As if I would go with anyone else.” 

Fleur’s responding aggressive kiss led to a much longer snogging session between the pair, not to mention a pair of quick hand jobs as their alpha cocks made their presence known. 

“Now Fleur my love, my mate, have you spoken to the clan about what happened at our bonding?”

“Oui” was Fleur’s cocky reply, “Maman and Grandmere said they will be coming before yule with dresses for us as well as bringing the little terror Gabrielle, who apparently begged and threw a tantrum to come watch her sœur compete.” a cocky smirk on her face which Hermione promptly kissed away. 

“Good to hear it. mon amour, and the golden egg, any luck with that?” was Hermione’s reply.

Fleur smirked once more, “Oui, mon amour. It didn’t take long for me to recognize the dialect of meerish spoken above water. With that knowledge, I knew I would need to listen to the message underwater. Something important to the champions will be taken and hidden in the depths of black lake. and we will have an hour to retrieve it.” 

Hermione frowned as her mind raced, “I doubt it will be easily replaced items , no it will be something of high personal value to each champion, something irreplaceable. something that will spurn the champions on to greater feats.” the younger veela mused. 

Hermione shook herself out of her own thoughts, “so when exactly will the others be arriving?”

Fleur smiled and gave Hermione a soft loving kiss, “from what Maman as soon as the term ends. So about a week before the dance. 

A few nights later in the Gryffindor common room, Harry and Ron were goofing off as usual, and Hermione tried unsuccessfully to get Harry to focus on the tournament, When Fred and George came in and asked Harry and Ron about their yule ball dates, which resulted in Fred calling out to Angelina over the common room and ask her to the dance, which resulted in an yes after a moment. 

Hermione gave up at that point, hurt that Harry simply took Ron back with no fuss, but also looking forward to the end of term. She wasn’t looking forward to more of Skeeter’s slash pieces, so far Skeeter tried to tie her romantically to Harry and Cedric, which the Slytherin’s ate up. 

She heard that before the last day of the term, Harry and Ron attempted to ask Cho Chang and Fleur Delacour respectively to the Yule ball. Hermione saw red at the thought of Ron talking to her mate, but did have to giggle at the resulting recounting of the event. Up until the part where Harry started to insinuate that Ron got caught in Fleur’s veela charms when he walked by her and Diggery in the Entrance hall. her resulting snort of anger drew the boys attention to her. 

“‘mione, Neville’s right, you’re a girl...”Ron started before getting cut off by Hermione.

“I’m relieved to know you can tell a girl from a boy Ronald.”

Ron ignored her response and plowed on ahead. “That means you can come with one of us.”

Hermione snorted, “No, I can not.” she snapped back. 

“Oh come on,” he said impatiently, “we need partners, we’re going to look really stupid if we haven’t got any, everyone else has . . .” 

“I can’t come with you,” said Hermione, “because I’m already going with someone.” 

“No, you’re not!” said Ron. “You just said that to get rid of Neville!” 

“Oh did I?” said Hermione, and her eyes flashed gold dangerously. “Just because it’s taken you three years to notice, Ron, doesn’t mean no one else has spotted I’m a girl!” 

Ron stared at her. Then he grinned again. “Okay, okay, we know you’re a girl,” he said. “That do? Will you come now?” 

“I’ve already told you!” Hermione said very angrily. “I’m going with someone else!” And she stormed off toward the girls’ dormitories again. 

“She’s lying,” said Ron flatly, watching her go.

Harry rolled his eyes, “When has Hermione ever lied?” Before spotting Parvati and Lavender Brown coming down from the girl’s dorm. After some nerves, Harry had secured dates for himself and Ron. with the Patil twins.

Harry and Ron spent the week after term up till Christmas doing as little as possible, like most of the school. Ron kept trying to get Hermione to tell him who she was going to the Yule ball with, with  
Hermione refused to answer. 

Finally Christmas day arrived after spending the morning exchanging presents, Harry, Ron and Hermione finally made their way down to breakfast, well more accurately brunch at this point. From there Harry and Ron spent the next couple of hours outside having a snowball fight before Hermione had disappeared sometime during the fight, no one involved saw her leaving. 

When it was time for the Yule ball, Harry and Ron headed down to the great room where the ball was taking place, after they got dressed in their dress robes. Both were looking around for Hermione before Ron added snidely, “She is probably in her dorm crying. All because she turned down this awesomeness.” making a sweeping gesture down his body and laughing. 

Viktor passed them with a girl in a blue dress on his arm, that none of them recognized. A few moments later Professor Mcgonagall called the champions over to her. “Miss Delacour, where is your date?” 

Fleur smiled and glanced over at the staircase, “There they are now, we wanted to make a dramatic entrance as they say.” Fleur replied in her much improved English.  
The French smiled widely and warmly as she watched Hermione descending the stairs in a periwinkle dress that matched Fleur’s periwinkle-silver dress perfectly. 

“Mon amour, you look radiant.” Fleur softly said as she looped her arm through Hermione’s arm and moved into the position where Professor  
McGonagall told them to wait at. The Professor gave them all a critical eye before adding softly. “Well done Ms Granger.”

Hermione just beamed on Fleur’s arm as they awaited the opening of the great hall.


	6. The Bonding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The yule ball, the 2nd task and the days leading up to the 3rd task. Also more secrets come to light.  
> (Since JK Rowling didn't seem to care if the story matched up to a real calendar, I am using the 4th year calendar posted on the HP lexicon.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since I have had a few people comment on Ron’s clueless behavior, I wanted to touch on it real fast. Remember, even though the Weasley’s are considered blood traitors, they are still very much a traditional pureblood wizarding family; this means the husband works, and the wife stays home popping out children. This was how each of them were raised. Ron is looking for his Molly, a woman that he can keep at home, barefoot and pregnant, one who will take care of the hearth. Anything that goes contrary to this view he rejects, especially with his presentation.I am still debating his ultimate partner along with Harry's 
> 
> Author’s note 2: Some of the text in this chapter comes straight from the Goblet of Fire book. I do not own anything Harry Potter related outside the plot for this story.
> 
> As always many thanks to the wonderful [Bozie_Quinn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bozie_Quinn/pseuds/Bozie_Quinn), who has been my wonderful beta.
> 
> Possible trigger warning for domestic abuse and rape

# 

The Bonding

Exactly at 8 pm the doors of the great hall opened magically, revealing that the chamber beyond the doors had been transformed into a winter wonderland. The walls of the Hall had all been covered in sparkling silver frost, with hundreds of garlands of mistletoe and ivy crossing the starry black ceiling. The House tables had vanished; instead, there were about a hundred smaller lantern-lit ones, each seating about a dozen people. Each of the smaller tables had a festive yule log centerpiece. Also except for the dance floor itself, much of the floor was covered in snow, setting a storybook scene in the great hall.

After the doors opened, Professor McGonagall kept the champions and their dates back. Once everyone else had entered, Professor McGonagall escorted the champions and their dates in, with Harry and Padma leading the group, followed by Fleur and Hermione, then Viktor and his date, And lastly, Cedric and Chang bringing up the rear. Professor McGonagall led the small group to a table closest to the head table. 

Once everyone had been seated, with Fleur, Cedric and Viktor pulling out their date’s chairs and Harry scrambling to follow suit. Hermione turned to chat withFleur a few minutes before their attention was drawn to Dumbledore, who exclaimed in a loud clear voice. “Pork Chops!” his eyes twinkling with his grandfatherly look.A moment later his requested dish appeared on his plate. Fleur and Hermione looked up at the staff table, where Madame Maxime subtly nodded to the pair with a smile on her face before she placed her order of Coq au vin.

That was all the instructions anyone needed, soon the hall was filled with the sounds of people calling out their meals. Hermione and Fleur conferred a moment in french before Fleur called out Boeuf bourguignon while Hermione went with Salade Niçoise. The bonded pair took their time feeding each other.

In time all the meals had been eaten and the plates cleared. Dumbledore stood and with a wave of his wand swept the tables to the sides of the great hall, enlarging the dance floor before he announced the champions would be doing the opening dance of the night. Turning to Professor Flitwick, who summoned music on queue, started out the night with a nice traditional waltz that each pair of champions danced to. 

Once the Champions completed the first dance the floor was opened to the rest of the students, not that Fleur and Hermione noticed, as they danced only for each other and with each other. They lost track of how many songs they danced to so lost in each other, just before they stepped off the dance floor, the pair shared a passionate kiss in the middle of the dance floor under a mysteriously enchanted sprig of mistletoe.

Slipping off the dance floor to applause, Fleur gave a slight bow before making her way over to fetch the pair drinks, while Hermione took the time to check on Harry and Ron.

She found the pair setting morosely at a table with their dates, who looked like they wanted to be anywhere but where they were. Taking a seat by them, “How is the ball going for you guys?”Hermione cheerfully asked. 

Harry, who was busy staring at Cho Chang and Cedric out on the dance floor, gave a disgruntled grunt. Ron meanwhile pointed ignored her and his date for the night, instead was eating anything he could, if the snack wrappers were any indication. 

Hermione was starting to get frustrated by the lack of reactions from her supposed best friends, Harry and Ron. After a few more attempts to get them to reply to her, Fleur found her at the table looking upset, trailed by some of the so called Gryffindor flock, since they always hung around Fleur and Hermione. Fleur handed Hermione her drink and cuddled with her, giving Hermione a chaste kiss on the cheek. 

A kiss that apparently Ron saw as he exploded right as a few unattached members of the flock pulled Padma and Parvati out onto the dance floor determined to show them a good time at least. 

“How could you!” Ron’s voice sounded out as his hand slapped down on the table, pulling everyone who was around to stare at the impending explosion, as his face turned red with anger. “Mione! you were supposed to be mine. Now you're fraternizing with the enemy!” 

Even Harry turned to stare at Ron incredulously. Hermione couldn’t believe it, she sat there trembling with rage in Fleur’s arms. She took a breath in an attempt to calm herself. “Ronald Weasley! I am not your property nor am I surrogate for your mother. Who I took to the yule ball with is none of your concern.” She seethed out, her eyes now a dark angry gold colour. And for your information, Fleur and myself do not discuss the tournament or Harry, besides to worry who would enter him in this mess!” 

Ron was spared any further rage on Hermione’s part, when a hand clamped down on his shoulder. “Mr Wealsey, I think it would be best if you come with me.” Came Professor McGonagall’s angry shrill voice. ‘’Ron turned redder, this time with embarrassment, as he turned to look at Professor McGonagall flanked by two regal looking blonde women, all three with an expression of repressed fury on their faces. Ron gulped as he was escorted out of the great hall, Fleur hugged Hermione tighter and suggested a walk to cool down. 

Hermione nodded and allowed Fleur to lead her out of the great hall, and out into one of the courtyards, the cool crisp air doing much to help Hermione to expel her anger and rage. She leaned into Fleur as the pair meandered through the hedges. Fortunately Fleur was able to help Hermione calm down and ultimately the pair spent time dancing a slow dance in the lightly falling slow before they made their way back into the great hall cum ballroom.

By this time the Weird Sisters had taken the stage and much of the dancing was frenzied gyrating and attempts at complex moves for their partners, which ended up turning out looking less than impressive. Hermione and Fleur got pulled onto the dance floor by the flock and spent a while with them before excusing themselves for a much needed break. 

They ran into Colette and Simone along with the rescued Patil twins on their way to the refreshment table. Padma and Parvati were clinging to the two members of the flock. Hermione gave the other foursome a long look before speaking in a low serious tone. “ **If either of you lead them on, break their hearts or do anything else to hurt either of them, i will personally rip your wings off, is that understood?** ” 

Hermione paused a moment before adding in an alpha tone. “ **They are both part of my flock and will be treated as such!** ” Hermione didn’t know what prompted her to claim them both as part of her flock, she wasn’t even sure she had a flock. but the golden sparkles of magic that surrounded her, Padma andParvarti seemed to think otherwise. 

Colette and Simone answered almost at once, “ **yes Alpha!** ” before they became more attentive to both Padma and Parvati for the rest of the night. 

Hermione turned to Fleur with confusion in her eyes. “ **What just happened Fleur?** ”she asked softly as Fleur guided them to an empty table where they both sat down. 

“ **My love, my mate, you were magnificent. You evoked your right as a true alpha to add them to _Our_ flock.**” Fleur replied to a bewildered Hermione, emphasizing the ‘our’ in her statement. 

Hermione blinked a few times, “ **wait ..what, what do you mean our flock? and the Patil twins do not have any veela blood at all, how does that work?** ” Hermione rushed out all in one breath.

That caused Fleur to let out a soft little giggle. “ **Oh my love, it is simple, as one of the flock alpha’s you have the ability to add members to the flock, whether they are veela or not. So when you declared the Patil twins as members of your flock, your family, the veela magic recognized the oath and they are now part of our extended family so to speak. And our, because when we mated, my flock became yours and your flock became mine as will our omega’s flocks when we claim them.** ” Fleur patiently explained to Hermione.

Hermione nodded and watched as Colette and Simone wooed the newest members of the flock. It seemed whatever they were saying to their dance partners was working, if the expressions on Padma’s and Parvati’s faces were anything to go by. Fleur interrupted Hermione’s thoughts by pulling her back out onto the dance floor for the last dance of the night. The bonded partners ended the dance with a loving kiss in each other's arms as the yule ball ended. Both feeling their bond deepening and solidifying as Hermione escorted Fleur back to the Beauxbatons carriage before taking herself back to the Gryffindor tower to fall into a deep filled sleep.

_Somewhere in the North Sea_  
In a small dark, damp cell in Azkaban prison, Bellatrix Lestrange snapped back to awareness with a moan of “Cissy” on her lips, she looked all around, only for the disappointment of reality to crash into her; she was still trapped in Azkaban prison, hell on earth. 

The imprisoned omega allowed herself to drift back to the dream she had, Narcissa and herself watching their Alpha’s bonding with each other and the promise those Alpha’s made to her and her sister. It filled her with hope and dread, she was still bound to the Lestrange family, even if something happened to Rodolphus, she would go to Rabastian. 

She rubbed at her hated forced mating bite, as despair filled her, but paused and carefully felt the bite sight. With widening eyes, Bellatrix scrambled to find her makeshift mirror from a polished plate. Angling it so she could look at her neck, she nearly howled with joy and hope.

There with her own eyes, she could see the bite fading. What could this mean, she wished she could speak with her sister Narcissa, who she hoped had already been freed from the brute their father sold her to. Bellatrix felt the creeping coldness signalling the approach of the dementors, and sealed her thoughts and feelings away so they would not feed on her hope.

******possible trigger scene*****  
 _Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire, England,  
at the same time_  
Narcissa Malfoy came back to herself, after enduring a particularly brutal session from Lucius, she had been left literally black and blue, with blood seeping out of various wounds that Lucius had inflicted on her body. The soreness in her lower regions let her know just how Lucius had ended the session. 

As Narcissa crawled over to her vanity and used it for support to climb into the seat with a whimper, as her abused buttocks hit the hard seat, for Lucius did not allow _his_ omega to have any comforts. Narcissa did what she could to ease her suffering but didn’t heal herself completely, she knew better for Lucius had trained her out of such things long ago. 

Letting her mind wander back to the encounter, happy for a chance to see Bellatrix once again, even if it was only through a shared vision. Only now did she recognize the place, it was part of the Delacour hatching grounds in Marseille. She was fortunate enough to visit there just before she was bound to the monster in a formal robes. Remembering the feelings and the promise of being united that the alphas gave the sisters, Narcissa knew she would need to do some discrete research and possibly attempt to contact the Delacour’s. But she would have to do this in true Slytherin fashion. Narcissa set about making plans before her duties around the manor called her away. 

Her first step was once again to reach out to her disowned sister Andromeda in secret, and hope Andy might have some insight as to what caused the spirit connection as she was calling it in her head.   
***trigger scene done*** 

With the letter written, Narcissa calles for Niorsey, a house elf Lucius did not know about and one that was bound to Narcissa only, and completely loyal to her.

“Mistress Cissa be calling for Niorsey?” a house elf in a black satin gown sewn for her size appeared. 

Narcissa smiled at Niorsey, “Please Niorsey, can you take this letter to Andromeda?”Narcissa asked as she held out the folded and sealed letter. 

“At once Mistress Cissa, Niorsey be honored to serve her Mistress Cissa” The house elf replied before disappearing with pop.

With yule falling on a Friday this year, it meant Hermione and Fleur had all weekend to work with Fleur’s mother and grandmother on Hermione’s training. So after breakfast on Saturday morning, Hermione found herself being escorted to Hogsmeade village to meet with the Veela elders, the ones at least who made the trip to Scotland for this. 

Fleur hand her arm wrapped through Hermione’s arm the whole way, and Hermione leaned against her mate with a happy smile. Even though she was feeling apprehensive about this meeting, Hermione did her best to not show it. 

Unsurprisingly, neither Colette nor Simone made it to breakfast today, nor did Hermione see the Patil twins. Shrugging to herself, Hermione whispered in Fleur’s ear, greatly enjoying the shudder it caused. “ **Are Colette or Simone Alpha’s >**” Hermione asked as they small group strolled through the snowy village streets until they made it to the Three Broomsticks Tavern. 

Fleur whispered back with a nod, “Oui, why do you ask?”

Hermione just gave Fleur a are you kidding me look before replying. “<>Because neither of them or the Patil twins made it to breakfast this morning.” 

Upon reaching the Three Broomsticks, Fleur led the small group inside, Hermione caught sight of Apolline and Penthesilea sitting at a table enjoying a light Scotish breakfast, mostly of fruits and cheese along with a breakfast tea. 

Fleur and Hermione smiled at them when Apolline spotted them and waved them over. Fleur happily led Hermione over to enjoy their warm greetings with air kisses to each cheek. After taking seats, Rosmetta hurried over and asked, “What can I get for you dearies?” 

Fleur glanced at her Maman and Grandmere, then shook her head. “I am fine thank you.” 

Apolline cleared her throat, “Ze check and ze private room we requested, merci.”

Rosmetta nodded and pulled out the check and set it down on the table along with a key for the private room. Apolline smiled and took care of the check, while Penthesilea led Fleur and Hermione towards the private room, with Apolline following behind after she finished with the check. 

In the private meeting room, Fleur and Hermione saw a dark hair couple reading a note. 

Apolline smiled at the sight of them _Ahh thank you for coming Andromeda and Ted._ ” before barring, warding and silencing the door. 

Once that was done, Penthesilea took over the conversation. “ **You can change back ow Theodora** ”

Hermione squeaked out a shocked “ **What?!?** ” as the ordinary looking dark haired ‘Ted’ turned into a stunning redheaded veela in front of them. 

Hermione’s thrall swept overall of them, barely registering the shock of Apolline and Penthesilea, as her thrall felt familiarity from Theodora.

Hermione mused, “ **Your thrall feels familiar, like a family member or something?** ” finally looking around at Fleur’s proud expression and the shocked expressions on the others.

Penthesilea finally commented after a moment to regain her wits, “ **When did you learn to speak the Veela language Fledgling?** ”

Hermione huffed, “ **I am no longer a fledgling, I am now a Veela Alpha!** ” She grossed back reaching up to expose the mating bites on her and Fleur’s necks. 

“ **I guided her through the second hatching Maman and Grandmere. We took the opportunity when we had the chance, there is a room in the castle that replicated the Hatching Woods perfectly even down to, but Hermione’s thrall was getting dangerous to herself and her friends.  
** Fleur paused to take a breath. “ **When the room took the Hatching grounds from my mind, we took a chance because with the tournament we did not know when we might get a chance before summer and it was too big a risk not to.** ” Fleur finished with a determined look.

Penthesilea nodded, “ **Perhaps you best tell us exactly what happened during this event?** ” she said in a tone that left no choice but to comply.

So with Andromeda and Theodora looking on with amusement, Fleur and Hermione recounted their previous time in the Room of Requirements, neither left anything out. Eventually they got to the part where Hermione instead of fighting Fleur, decided instead to offer Fleur the choice of completing their bond and the two omega’s that appeared to witness the event. 

Once the bonded pair had finished had finished their recount of the events, Penthesilea looked pensive, “ **So, to save my granddaughter from exile, you completed a bonding;not only that you both are positive these own now omega’s are yours, do you have any idea who they might be?** ” the elder Veela grumbled out, looking disappointed in both of the younger Veela.

Fleur cleared her throat, “ **I believe one might have been the omega from the Quidditch World Cup that started the memory charms to fail on Hermione, the blonde one, the other though is a complete unknown.** ” 

Penthesilea nodded solemnly but before she could say anything, Andromeda interrupted. 

“I believe I might be able to shed some light on that matter. I recently received a letter from my sister. In it she explained how herself and my other sister were pulled into some sort of dream connection, my sisters were only able to watch and hear but nothing else. They did mention just before they were expelled from the dream, the pair of young alpha’s they were observing, looked right at them and promised they would be united with their omega’s soon.” with that she handed over the letter to Penthesilea.

As Penthesilea read the letter, Theodora nuzzled her mate’s neck. 

Hermione’s inquisitive mind couldn't contain itself any longer. “ **But how were we able to bring their spirit selves to us?** ” she exclaimed.

Penthesilea passed the letter to Apolline before answering. “ **/It's a rare ability among Veela, the ability to bring mates not able to be with them physically into what is commonly called a mind meld. It is something the Beuchamp line seemed to be exceptionally skilled in.** ”

Theodora spoke up from her spot nuzzling Andromeda, “ **Oui, and as a Beuachamp, I can help you train it so it might become a full meld, allowing full interaction between you and you mates.** ” 

Hermione smiled at Theodora, “ **Thank you, we will gladly accept the offer of aid.** ” 

“Merde!” Apolline swore as she finished the letter. 

“Maman, what is it?” Fleur asked in a voice full of worry. 

Andromeda sighed, “I believe she figured out who my sisters are. I am sorry, where are my manners. I am Andromeda Tonks nee Black, mated to the wonderful Theodora Tonks-Delacour nee Beauchamp. Better known as Ted Tonks to the wizarding world, also you Aunt Hermione.” She paused there as Theodora cut in. 

“Oui, your mother was my Sister, when the attack on your family happened, the Delacours adopted me into the clan officially.” Theodora added, as Andromeda smacked her arm.

“What have I said about interrupting me?” Andromeda snipped at her like an old married couple. The pair bickered for a few moments before Andromeda huffed, “As I was saying, my sisters are Narcissa Malfoy nee Black and Bellatrix Lestrange nee Black. Since we were all omega’s our father sold us to the highest bidder. The Malfoy family got Narcissa and the Lestrange family got Bellatrix. I was to be sold to the Mcnair family before my darling Theodora found me.”

“That is horrible!” Hermione exclaimed, “wait what do you mean sold to the Malfoy and Lestrange families?” 

Andromeda sighs out, “One of the nastier parts of pureblood marrriage’s. You see if the primary marriage doesn’t work out for any reason, it will go to another in the family to provide an heir if one isn’t already. This means that with Lucius being the last elible Malfoy, if something happens to him, Narcissa would go to Draco if he is of age and an alpha. On the other hand, Bellatrix would go to Rabsbatian if anything happened to Rodolphus.”

Hermione frowned and looked at Fleur for a moment, “Then how do we free our omegas then?”

Andromeda shrugged, “you may have to eliminate any who may have a hold on them, but wait.. maybe not.” She paused and pulled out another note and skimmed it over, “Ahh yess.. here we go, Narcissa mentioned that the mating bite Lucius forced on her is fading, it started about the time of the Quidditch World Cup.”

Fleur snapped her fingers, “It must have started when we caught her scent and she ours?”

Hermione nods, “That makes sense, so if the forced marks disappear does that null the marriage?”

Andromeda nodded, “Technically it would, but don’t expect either Lucius or the Lestranges to just give them up without a fight. You may be forced to kill them to secure your omega’s.” 

Hermione just chuckled darkly, “I was already planning on killing them for their part in the attack on my family, now they will die for vengeance and more importantly to free our Omega’s.”

Apolline interrupted at that point. “ **Andromeda and Theodora, will the two of you help train Fleur and Hermione to complete their vow?** ”

Once both Andromeda and Theodora agreed quite quickly to training the two younger alpha’s, the rest of the meeting was spent going over a training schedule and where to have them at, along with some basic training routines for Hermione. Eventually it was time for Fleur and Hermione to head back to the castle.

The next few weeks passed by quickly for Hermione, between classes, assignments, pestering Harry about the egg and her training with Fleur, Andromeda and Theodora; Hermione felt like she was back in her third year with the time turner. It wasn’t till the end of February that Harry got a clue about the egg from Cedric.

But that only meant Hermione was now stuck helping Harry research ways to breath underwater along with everything else. Which was what Hermione was doing in the Library with Harry and Ron as well as Fleur the night before the task. 

That is where Fred and George found them along with Neville who was with them. 

“Oh, Fleur, Madame Maxime was looking for you at the Carriage.” Fred said without preamble. 

“Merci, I better go see what she wants.” as she gathered her supplies and leaned over to give Hermione a sweet kiss. “I will see you later Mon Cour.”

Once Fleur had left the library, George turned to Hermione and Ron, who was turning red from seeing the kiss. “Professor McGonagall asked us to fetch you both.” He said. 

Hermione looked at Ron who looked at each other in confusion as Hermione gathered up her supplies and followed Fred and George to Professor McGonagall’s office. That was when everything went dark for Hermione. 

Fleur arrived back at the carriage, and went to find Madame Maxime. 

“ _Fleur what are you doing here?_ ” Madame Maxime asked when Fleur entered her office on the carriage.

“ _You were looking for me, HeadMistress? You asked the Weasley twins to let me know?_ ” came Fleur’s confused reply. 

Madame Maxime shook her head, “I did no such thing, I knew you would be with Hermione tonight. I had no reason to pull you away sooner.”

Fleur just then grabbed her chest over her heart. “Merde! Excusez-moi!” she exclaimed before rushing back towards the Library. 

Meeting Colette and Simone on the way, the three burst into the library, Fleur spotted Harry in a discussion with Neville over a book, but no Hermione. Fleur rushed over to the table, “‘arry, where is ‘ermione?” her panic making her accent more noticable. 

Harry looked up in shock, “what? oh well Fred and George said Professor McGonagall wanted to see Hermione and Ron.” came his hesitant reply.

“What did something happen to her?” Harry asked as he started to get up. 

Fleur paused to look at Harry, “Non.. Merci, we will find her. You need to work on your strategy, we will find Hermione. Merci once again.”before Fleur, Colette and Simone rushed out of the Library, leaving a worried Harry Potter behind. 

Their next stop was Professor McGonagall’s office, which they found empty and locked up. Fleur, Colette and Simone searched everywhere for Hermione without a trace of her to be found.

By this time it was ner curfew, and a downtrodden Fleur, Colette and Simone returned to the carriage. Fleur said good night to Colette and Simone before going to give Madame Maxime an update, where she found her Headmistress talking with her mother and grandmother. 

Apolline turned as soon as Fleur entered the Headmistress’s room. “ **Did you find your mate?** ” Apolline asked as she gathered her daughter into her arms at the look of despair on her face. 

“ **Non, we looked everywhere, it is like she just disappeared.** ” Fleur sobbed out, finally breaking down in her mother’s arms.

“ **What of the bond link? Can you feel her through that?** ” Penthesilea asked in a grave tone. 

Fleur turned her head and blinked, before focusing on her bond to Hermione. “ **I can tell the bond is still there but it’s like she is in a coma or something. I can not feel her, but she is still somewhere in the castle.** ” 

Fleur started to rush back to the castle when Madame Maxime asked, “ _What is going on?_ ” 

Apolline held Fleur while Penthesilea explained the situation to Madame Maxime. 

Fleur and Apolline both jumped when Maxime’s large hand smacked into her desk top. “ _I told those fools not to involve Hermione, when it was suggested but apparently those idiots didn’t listen. I bet it was Karkaroff’s idea to use her._ ” 

Penthesilea snorted and looked positively livid, “ _We may not be able to stop it at this point, but Dumbeldore and the rest will learn better than to disregard advice. I have a few calls to make now._ ” And with that the elder Veela excused herself to do exactly that. 

Apolline whispered softly to Fleur, “ **Tomorrow just focus on the bond it will guide you to you mate.** ” before she addressed Madame Maxime. “ _I will take her to get her settled down, dear Maxime, thank you for your support and help during this, oh and the drinks._ ”

With that Apolline led a distraught Fleur out to Fleur’s room, once there, Apolline helped Fleur get changed into sleep clothes and brushed her hair. 

“ **Now, I want you to listen to me, my darling Fleur. Everything will be fine, trust yourself and your bond to Hermione. It will guide you and we will be waiting for you both when the task is over. You are strong enough to do this.** ” Apolline eventually got Fleur in bed before transfiguring her own robes into something to sleep in before curling protectively around her comatose daughter. 

The Morning of the 2nd task had arrived, and Fleur was a nervous mess waiting for the other champions to arrive, she paced back and forth on the dock in front of the set up stands. Fortunately Apolline was there to calm Fleur down.

“ **My darling Flower, remember what we discussed last night, focus on that and stop trying to wear a hole in the docks with your pacing.** ” 

Apolline held Fleur by the shoulders until the younger Veela nodded in understanding. Fleur still didn’t stay still but she was no longer nervously pacing. 

Cedric Diggory and Viktor Krum had shown up in the meantime with Cedric looking a bit nervous but trying to keep an upbeat appearance, while Viktor was looking extremely pleased with himself. That caused Fleur to narrow her eyes at the surly Bulgarian, now positive that he had something to do with Hermione being one of the prizes for the champions to retrieve. 

Soon the stands started to fill with the judges taking their places at the head table. Fleur noticed her flock was sitting intermixed with the Gryffindor students. She spotted Colette and Simone sitting with the Patel twins, which caused her to smile. 

She heard one of the judges asking where Harry Potter was, then a brief argument erupted over whether or not to disqualify Potter for not showing up; when Potter raced to the docks at the last minute with Moody hobbling along behind him at a leisurely pace. 

With all the champions present, Dumbledore rose and explained the task. The champions would have an hour to retrieve what was taken from them, which now resided at the bottom of the lake. And points will be on how well the champion’s complete the task and navigate the underwater perils. 

“Now champions get ready....set!...” Dumbledore was cut off by the sound of the canon going off.

Fleur wasted no time as she dived into the water, then quickly cast a warming charm and bubble-head charm. Focusing on her connection to Hermione, she observed Cedric also using a bubble-head charm and disappearing under the water and Viktor’s incomplete transfiguration into a shark. Shaking her head and muttering, “idiot, sharks are warm blooded creatures, wrong form to use.” as he too disappeared under the water.   
Harry Potter seemed to have grown gills and webbed hands. 

With the link fully connected and now used the water temperature, Fleur let her Veela take forefront and dived, using her veela eyes to amplify the low light of the water to allow her to see below the water more easily;Fleur followed the bond toward her prize, making sure to steer clear of places grindylows liked to hide. 

She soon arrived at the mermaid village, where she found the shark Viktor fighting with the merfolk trying to get to the floating form of Hermione. Fleur saw red and quickly swam past the others to stay in front of Viktor. She saw the Merfolk gathering for another defense, Fleur quickly chilled the water around Viktor to make it harder on him, she stayed in that position as Cedric and Harry arrived. 

Cedric immediately swam to the sleeping form of Cho Chang and freed her with a nod to the still guarding Fleur. Meanwhile, Harry was looking between the sleeping forms of Hermione, Ron and the last form, Viktor’s date from the yule ball. 

Fleur motioned to Harry to take Ron, never taking her eyes off Viktor, Harry nodded and cut Ron free and Fleur cut Hermione free, swimming to the surface alongside Harry. 

Part way up, it appeared whatever helped Harry under the water had stopped working, and Fleur had to help him reach the surface. When they finally broke the surface, Ron and Hermione awoke from their enchanted sleep. This enabled all 4 to swim towards the docks.

Fleur cried out in pain as something bit down on her leg, blood rushed into the water as Hermione quickly pulled Fleur away and watched with narrowed eyes. Hermione clung to Fleur until they were pulled out of the water, the angry large bite on her thigh, leaking blood all over the place. Fortunately a veela healer was standing by and jumped in to start healing the injury, over Madam Pomfey’s objections. 

Hermione narrowed her eyes as a sluggish Viktor pulled himself from the water with blood around his now normal mouth. Hermione pulled her wand and summoned some of the blood into a vial she transformed from a bit of seaweed that was clinging to her clothes.

Dumbledore was hunched over the water speaking with the Merfolk chieftain. No doubt getting the full story of what happened below the water before conferring with his fellow judges. A few minutes later Ludo Bagman’s amplified voice rose over the gathered crowd. 

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our decision. Merchieftainess Murcus has told us exactly what happened at the bottom of the lake, and we have therefore decided to award marks out of fifty for each of the champions, as follows. . . .  
"To Ms Fleur Delacour, for demonstrating excellent use of the Bubble-Head, stayed to assist the merfolk in defense of their village from another champion and made sure most of the hostages were recovered, who also suffered a grave injury once on the surface, for moral fiber and putting the needs of others ahead of herself, we award a full 50 points.”

there was thunderous applause not only from the Beauxbatons students but also many of the Hogwarts students. 

“To Mr Cedric Diggery, who was the first to return with his hostage, thanks to Ms Delacour, we awarded 47 points.”

‘ A deafening cheer from the Hufflepuff contingent echoed across the lake. 

To Mr. Harry Potter used Gillyweed to great effect, and reached the hostages at the same time as Mr Diggory. Though he did delay in his desire to make sure both Mr Weasley and Ms Granger were rescued. For that we award 45 points.”

“Finally, to Mr. Viktor Krum, who used an incomplete transfiguration form, that never-the-less was still effective, was the first to react the Merfolk village, where he was prevented from going after the hostage of his choice and tried to fight his way through, was prevented from doing more harm and damage by Ms Delacour. He completely ignored his hostage and later attacked Ms Delacour once she was on the surface. We awarded him 10 points."

The totals for each champion updated once the scored were given with the board now reading:  
Fleur Delacour: 95 points  
Harry Potter: 85 Points  
Cedric Diggery: 85 Points  
Viktor Krum: 50 points

Viktor harshly yelled out, “I was told she would be mine!” 

Viktor jumped when someone behind him asked. “Told by whom Mr Krum?” 

Turning he saw a red-haired witch with the badge for the enforcement department of the ‘The International Confederation of Wizards’ or ICW. Viktor swallowed slowly before answering “Headmaster Karkaroff, told me he had arranged everything, she should have been mine from day one. I am the strongest Alpha yet she didn’t even bat an eye at my pheromones.” 

The witch nodded and signalled others, who escorted Viktor Krum and Igor Karkaroff away.  
Pulling a scroll from her robes she walked over to Dumbledore. “Albus Dumbledore, you are hereby notified that your membership to the ICW is revoked.” 

“What? Why?” a dumbfounded Dumbledore said.

The witch smirked, “Because you have allowed outside forces to interfere in the tournament to start with and we will be conducting a thorough investigation. Don’t worry we have replacement impartial judges to fill in for the rest of the tournament. It’s all right here.” she replied shoving the scroll into his chest. 

Ludo Bagman had one last announcement. “Ladies and Gentlemen, the third and final task will take place at dusk on June 24th.” 

With that everyone started back to the castle, with Madame Pompey trying to herd the champions and hostages but soon gave up trying to take control of Fleur and Hermione, since the veela healer never left their side. 

The very next day, in the Daily Prophet, was yet another article from Rita Skeeter. The article went on to detail everything that happened on the dock during the task. Hermione who was sitting at the Gryffindor table reading it with her flock around her. Fleur who was still walking with a bit of a limp was seated beside her. When Hermione got further into the article, Fleur could sense her confusion and growing anger through the bond. 

Turning to comfort her mate, Fleur pulled her close. “ **What is it my love?** ” Fleur calmly asked, “ **What has you so confused and angry?** ”

Hermione huffed and shoved the paper into Fleur’s hands, “ **how is she getting her information, she was nowhere around the docks yesterday. So how did she know about the outcome and Dumbledore getting dismissed from the ICW?** ” Hermione let out another huff, and looked around before Fleur pulled her attention.

“ **Well, it appears you have been cheating on me with the other champions. Tsk Tsk.** ” Fleur said with an angry expression and glared at Hermione as the brunette babbled trying to deny it all. 

“ **What!** ” she shrieked out, “ **No, never, Harry is like a brother to me, and well Viktor he is an asshole who thinks with his dick and cedric, I barely know.** ” she sputtered out. 

Fleur broke into giggles, “ **My love, I was never worried, it would be impossible for you to be with anyone else, the bond wouldn’t allow it, and if you tried it would punish you. Although I too am curious how Skeeter found out what she did, how did she know of our plans to tour France and Germany this summer? It is almost like she had had a bug on someone.”**

Hermione snapped her fingers, “ **that’s it. Fleur, do you remember the beetle in my hair after the task; didn’t it seem a bit convenient that the markings looked alot like Skeeter’s glasses?** ” Hermione exclaimed. 

Fleur nodded, with eyes shining with pride at her mate. “ **If that is true, do not worry my love, we have her then and I know how to catch her.** ” Fleur said with a wicked grin.

Hermione nodded and beamed when Fleur gave her a loving kiss. “ **I will see you at lunch my love.** ” Fleur added before joining the rest of the flock for their day. 

Since it was a wednesday morning, Hermione had class to hurry to. The rest of the day seemed to pass in a blur. Hermione barely remembered her lessons or her training that day. 

The next few days passed slowly, but on Saturday morning, Fleur had a cheshire grin as she handed Hermione a fresh Daily Prophet.Hermione gave Fleur a questioning look as she opened the paper and started to read it asking as she did. " **What did you do my love?** " Giving Fleur another curious questioning look before her attention was taken in by the headline she saw.

**_Scandal at the Daily Prophet_ ** _  
By Glinda Warbeck - Editor in chief of the Daily Prophet._

_Auror's have taken star Prophet reporter, Rita Skeeter into custody on various charges, the most serious of which is the accusation that Ms Skeeter is in fact an illegal, unregistered aniamagus. We at the Daily do not condone such actions and are deeply saddened that Ms Skeeter felt she had to use such tactics. The entire staff of the Daily Prophet will cooperate with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement in any way we can._

_See page 6 for more details_

" **I simply took our theories to those with the ability to do something about them my love.** " Fleur added with a cheeky smile. " **Remember my love, we have the entire clan to call on in times of need.** "

Hermione nodded, " **I am not used to having others to go to for help, I have always had to do everything my self.** " Hermione replied a bit sadly. 

The weeks flew by and as the end of the year approached, Hermione went into revision mode, she practically lived in the Library, of course dragging Fleur with her. Between revisions, her normal course work, her weekly lessons with Andromeda and Theodora, Hermione was very tempted to see about borrowing Professor McGonagall's Time-turner once again.

By the time the year rolled into June, Fleur and Hermione had become passable deulists, Hermione almost had complete control of her thrall, not to mention a passable Occlumens and Iegiilmens. To celebrate her ocomplishments, Fleur dragged Hermione to a private dinner in the Beauxbatons Carriage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Terrancorn. I hope Andromeda lived up to yout expectations. Next chapter will feature a lot more of her


	7. The Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meeting the rest of the Tonks family, the folk increases and the 4th year comes to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In my mind, Theodora looks like the model Starfucked] 
> 
> Author’s note: Sorry everyone for the delay of this chapter, Real life decided to be a bitch as well as my muse and the chapter fighting me the whole way. Also, I decided to keep the focus on our main ladies, with most of the story being from Hermione’s point of view. With that in mind, I ended up not delving into some parts of the story I could have, but I do not feel it will impact the story in an overall way.
> 
> Edited the chapter to fix a mistake i made accidently
> 
> **VEELA SPEECH**  
>  _French speech or spells_

# 

The Rebirth

It was the first weekend in June and Hermione was looking forward to spending time With Fleur as well as the upcoming training session for more reasons than one... Hermione had just stumbled onto a huge clue thanks to the Marauder's Map. A clue she was eager to share with her growing flock. 

Hermione practically floated down to breakfast in her excitement, but she made sure to greet her friends and her flock. She noted that Colette was snuggled up against Padma and a glance over toward the Ravenclaw table showed Simone was also snuggled up with Parvati, currently hand feeding her breakfast. 

That sight made Hermione beam and giggle softly to herself as she sat down by Fleur and kissed the veela by the ear as she whispered in her ear, “I found something, meet me in the first floor abandoned classroom after breakfast my love.” 

Fleur shivered at Hermione’s intimate display, deciding to one-up Hermione. She grabbed a strawberry, dipped it in the rich cream and popped it into Hermione’s mouth. Then with a smirk, she kissed the excess cream away and whispered a breathless “Oui” 

Fleur’s smirk grew into a wicked grin when she saw Hermione turning best red mentally counting that as a point for her. “Do not forget we are to meet the Tonks for training in Hogsmeade village at 10 am as well my love.” 

Hermione smirks and nods, “remember my love, do you remember who was at the staff table?” Hermione asks as she unrolls a parchment and spreads it on a desk with a soft. “I swear I am up to no good.”

“Oui, Professors’ Dumbledore, Karkaroff, McGonagall, Sprout, Flitwick, and Moody,” Fleur replied as she looked over Hermione’s shoulder to where the Marauder Map showed the school. Hermione’s finger traced each name as Fleur called them out, before pausing on the image of Barty Crouch Jr. where Moody should have been. Then her finger pointed to the stationary name Moody in the DADA professor’s office. 

“I think that whoever this Crouch Jr is, is using polyjuice to pretend to be the real Moody.” Hermione said before she snapped her fingers, “Now I remember, He was one of the Death Eaters that attacked my Parents.” 

Fleur pulled out her wand and made a duplicate of the map. “Now we have proof to share with the clan, but we must get going or we will be late.” 

“Mischief Managed.” Hermione squeaked out as Fleur grabbed her hand and started to pull her out of the room, Hermione managed to grab the now blank map before she was completely pulled out of the room. 

Hermione managed to store the map and the copy away as Fleur practically dragged her all the way to their meeting with the Tonk’s women. Hermione was surprised that waiting for them at The Three Broomsticks was three people instead of the expected two. 

Hermione and Fleur both give a nod toward ‘Theodore’ Tonks and Andromeda before turning to look at the 3rd person. This person looked to be recently graduated from Hogwarts, possibly in her early 20s. The young woman sported bright bubblegum pink hair in a messy comb-over, exposing the shaved sides with stubble growing back in. 

While this was going on ‘Ted Tonks’ excused themselves to go make sure their private room was arranged as they requested. 

“Wotcher! Ladies, Mum has been going on about the two of you for weeks.” The bubblegum haired young woman said. Hermione lifted an eyebrow and turned to give Andromeda a look. 

Andromeda rolled her eyes, but caught the signal from ‘Ted Tonks’. With a suitably scandalized look, Andromeda yelled with a shriek, “Nymphadora!” 

“Don’t call me Nympha..!” The pink haired woman started to scream back before she was cut off as Andromeda grabbed one of Nymphadora’s ears and dragged her back to the private room where ‘Ted’ was waiting. Hermione and Fleur exchanged a look before following after Andromeda as the barroom broke into giggles and chuckles. 

Once in the silenced, sealed, and magically expanded private room. Andromeda turned to Nymphadora. 

“Nymphadora, you were raised better than that! Family business stays in the family.”

“Tonks! I go by Tonks never Nymphadora, Goddess why would you call your daughter such a name.” Nymphadora yelled back before turning on her father ‘Ted Tonks’ “And how could you go along with that idea?”

Nymphadora watched as her ‘father’ ‘Ted Tonks’ smoothly turned back into her Veela parent. Nymphadora fought back the smirk that threatened to appear whenever she got to witness it. 

Theadora ‘Theodore’ Tonks-Delacour just shook her head. “As you very well know, Nymphadora,” Theadora smirked as Nymphadora got pissed off, “I was the one that suggested the name to your mother.” She replied as she wrapped Andromeda up in her arms and kissed her passionately. 

“You were named after the nymphs and forest spirits. It is a good veela name. “ Fleur nodded in agreement to the statement. 

“But you didn’t have to grow up with nicknames like nympho or worse everyone trying to get into your pants because they thought you would be an easy lay because of your name.” Nymphadora shot back, close to tears from her parents not able to understand why she hates the name so much.

Nymphadora is surprised when she feels both Fleur and Hermione hug her from behind, giving her much wanted and needed support. 

“Dora, you have done well not to let that name define you. You are family and more importantly, you are a member of our flock, all three of you are. “ Hermione stated regally as a golden glow surrounded all of them.

Fleur, for her part, nodded and said “Oui, family and members of this flock.” She smiled as the golden glow intensified and flashed as the Tonk’s were fully accepted into the flock.

Suddenly both Theodora and Andromeda dropped to one knee, “Alphas!” they said as one, while Dora looked at them strangely. 

“Moms! What are you doing? Why are you kneeling to them?” Nymphadora frantically cried out as she broke away from Hermione and Fleur and ran to them. 

Theodora shook her head and commented to Andromeda, “I told you we should have sent her to Beauxbatons.” 

Andromeda snorted and slapped Theodora’s arm. “And in the end *you* decided we could train her ourselves without the clan.” Andromeda turns her attention to Nymphadora. 

“You remember the lessons on the clan and the flock correct?” Andromeda waited for Nymphadora’s responding nod before she continued. “Remember how we told you that the clan is run by the Clan head, the head of the most influential clan family?” At Nymphadora’s replying nod, Andromeda smiled warmly.

“Well, it just so happens that Fleur is the chosen Alpha heir of the Delacour Clan and Hermione would not have been able to start the Flock adoption if she were not also an alpha.” Andromeda finished. Nymphadora looked wide-eyed between Fleur and Hermione for a moment before she took a knee beside her two mothers. 

Theodora chuckled and added, “While all this is very touching, we are still here for a reason. Nymphadora you will have a sparring duel with Fleur while myself and Andromeda work privately with Hermione. Once we are done we will switch partners.” Here Theodora paused to grin at Nymphadora. “It will do you good to practice with others than the neanderthals at the Ministry. Don’t give me that look Nymphadora, you know as well as I do collectively they are not the sharpest tools in the shed.” 

Nymphadora huffed as her hair turned a bright fiery red in protest to Theodora’s words. “Fine, come on Fleur, let’s get this over with”

She led Fleur over to the partitioned Practice area, while Hermione went with Andromeda and Theodora to a private side room for their lesson. With the door closed, Hermione couldn’t hear anything from the practice area. 

As soon as the door was closed, Hermione was led to a comfortable seat and Andromeda was attempting to invade Hermione’s mind. Initially, Hermione was easily able to keep Andromeda out, but when Theodora started morphing into different people with odd body parts; Hermione’s concentration broke and Andromeda was able to invade Hermione’s mind. 

Andromeda found herself reliving the events in the Hatching Grounds from Hermione’s point of view, she was able to see Hermione’s aroused alpha state as well as how Hermione and Fleur accidentally summoned Narcissa and Bellatrix spirits to witness the bonding. By this time, Hermione had quickly realized that Andromeda had slipped past her mental defenses. With a mental growl, Hermione rebuilt her mental walls and pushed Andromeda out of her mind, although this was done in a none too gentle manner. It knocked Andromeda out of her seat. Theodora was quick to check on her wife, taking the time to lovingly wipe the trickle of blood from Andromeda’s nose. 

A remorseful Hermione rushed over to help as well. “I am so sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen!” Hermione sobbed out an apology. 

Andromeda just waved it away. “I am fine, no harm done, just unexpected was all. You did well keeping me out and then expelling me once I had found myself in your mind. Now we will have to focus on training you to expel any you find inside your mind in such a way as to not notify them you were aware they snuck in. Something the Headmaster is famous for.” Andromeda paused and smiled at the other women, “Also I was able to witness some of your bonding before you kicked me out, I think I saw how you pulled the spirits of Bellatrix and Narcissa to share the moment with them. And I must say, Hermione, your Alpha is a very fine specimen.” Andromeda added with a wry chuckle. 

Hermione blushed at the light teasing but nodded in the end. The three women spent the rest of their session, practicing with Hermione to gently expel them with no effects as well as working on her method of summoning soul spirits. The group was able to have some success in the summoning and The Tonks gave Hermione ways to practice on her own or preferably with Fleur. On the other lesson, Hermione seemed to pick this up much faster and even pushed her memory of discovering the fake moody to the forefront of her mind so Andromeda and Theodora would be able to see it during her repelling attempts. 

Before the trio could discuss what they had seen, a slightly worse for wear looking pair of Fleur and Nymphadora entered the private side room. Although Fleur was sporting a triumphant smirk and Nymphadora was grumbling. Hermione finished up with Andromeda and Theodora quickly before leaving Fleur with them and following Nymphadora to the training area. 

Fleur stops Hermione on her way by, “Mon Amour, trust in yourself and your instincts, I have faith you will return victorious.” Fleur finished with a loving kiss. “Now do not go easy on her, she is cocky with her position,” Fleur added with a wink. 

Hermione gave her a returning smirk and nodded before following Nymphadora out of the room. 

Nymphadora or Tonks as she preferred to be called was waiting for Hermione. 

“Wotcher Hermione, this will not be like the formal dueling shown here at Hogwarts. This will be similar to battlefield dueling. Any questions?” Tonks asked at the end of her short speech. 

Hermione smirked as she shook her head and opened herself up to her bond. Hermione could feel a bit of excitement leaking through the bond, but she was sure it wasn’t from Fleur.

To settle herself somewhat and keep the excitement she felt at bay along with her now itching inner Veela, Hermione took a moment to look around the transformed training area. 

Hermione could see the spell damage from the earlier duel among the various obstacles and barriers around the area. The expanded room was filled with low pillars, short stubby trees, and low walls. It looked like some of the World War II battlefield ruins she had seen pictures of. 

“Right, so wait here for 5 minutes, then come find me before I find you.” Tonks was saying, snapping Hermione out of her introspective trance. 

Hermione ignored her inner Veela’s excitement of a possible hunt as well as matching excitement from the bond, as she took a moment and a last look around before nodding agreement to Tonks. 

Tonks grinned a wicked grin before twisting away with a soft pop. 

Hermione smirked to herself before allowing her veela to the surface while she cast a wordless Wingardium Leviosa on herself and floated up to the roof of the room. A couple of minor sticking charms later, Hermione was free to walk across the ceiling. 

Instinctively, Hermione wrapped her wings around herself. 

‘Wait.. wings?!’ Hermione mentally shrieked to herself and took a few moments to examine her dark luxuriously feathered wings. Silken black long feathers made up most of the wings, lightening slightly as they approached the base. 

Hermione could feel amusement and approval through the bond, she could only guess it was from one of their other mates. Hermione did make a note to show Fleur later. 

A quick tempus check showed Hermione it was about time to start on the hunt. With a smirking grin and using her wings as a shielding cloak, Hermione slowly crept along the roof as she tapped into her veela to enhance her sight

Her talons made scampering along the roof a fairly mundane task, much like walking normally was. And her veela eyesight made navigating in the dark akin to normal daylight, even with the muted tint to everything. 

Spotting Tonks hiding behind a low wall with a clear view of the most logical path through the training area, Hermione nodded at the Ministry training methods. Hermione rolled her eyes at the idea she would blindly walk into a trap like that. Then she remembered it was Tonk’s first time dueling against her. Now if Tonks tried this next time, Hermione would make her pay. 

But for now, Hermione added a couple of silencing charms to get talons and wings before slowly creeping into position. She was about 3 meters behind Tonks, not counting the 4 meters from the ceiling to the ground. that would give her spells approximately about 5 meters to get to Tonks.

Deciding to make things a bit showy, Hermione started by conjuring a storm cloud to rain all over Tonk's position. She followed that up with a freezing charm to the puddling water, turning it into ice. 

While Hermione was turning the battlefield to her advantage, Tonks was blindly firing spells in random directions and slipping a bit one the fresh ice. That almost gave Hermione away as she was barely able to stifle her giggles.

Once Hermione had finished her silent giggles, momentarily forgetting about her muffilado charm and Tonks was rapidly tiring from her near-constant minute of spellcasting. 

Hermione took aim, immersing herself in the warm amusement from her bond passenger. With a mental ‘watch this’ to her mental passenger and feeling the others piqued interest, she let loose a rapid Incendio followed immediately by a Bombarda.

Hermione and her guest watched first as the flames rapidly melted the ice then heated the water to the boiling point, sending up waves of scalding steam; this was followed up by the exploding charm creating an explosion of rock, ice, steam, water, and other debris as it sent Tonks flying. As Tonk groaned and tried to get back to her feet, Hermione sent a quick expelliarmus to capture Tonks wand as a rich wild cackle filled her mind. 

Levitating down behind a more substantial wall, Hermione stepped out, once she returned her wings back into herself. Chuckling as she twirled Tonks's wand in her hand. "They never look up."

Hermione took a moment to check on Tonks before handing her wand back. Tonks had turned her hair a deep dark magenta shade, displaying for all how she felt. Tonks groaned out. 

“Fuck anyone get the number of the bus that ran me over?” She mumbled as she stood on unsteady legs and started to dust herself off. 

“Merlin! Hermione, I doubt many of the seasoned Aurors would have done much better. Remind me never to take it easy on either you or Fleur again. She was like an icy whirlwind in our duel. Cold but able to unleash icy hell at a moment’s notice. I truly thought you would be an easier target. Shows me what I know eh?” Tonks continued to ramble to herself but stopped when Hermione let out a chilling cackle. Tonks could only shiver and stare. 

Hermione could only smirk at Tonk’s expression. Deciding to test out just how well this connection went, Hermione sent a wave of warmth back to the other person. When she felt the other respond to the warmth. 

Hermione went for the next little experiment. ‘Hello, did you enjoy the show?’ she thought, directed toward the other presence in her mind. 

Hermione waited a moment before she ‘heard’ back from the other. 

‘Very ingenious, what gave you that idea?’ A warm, husky and smoky, yet still feminine voice sounded in Hermione’s head. 

Hermione giggled in her head, ‘Oh, I got the idea from old movies and television shows. I knew Nymphadora would be expecting me to just wander blindly but stay on the ground, I suppose she was forgetting she was facing a veela, I will excuse it this time.’ 

The warm smoky voice chuckled and giggled in her head. ‘So what is a tellyvision show or a movie?’ The voice asked with curiosity.

Hermione giggled in her mind, ‘Well you see it’s sorta like a pensive that multiple people can use. It is a picture that moves but also talks to you, and you can rewatch it as many times as you want.’ Hermione answered the other voice in her mind. 

A soft cackle echoed in Hermione’s head along with a sudden scent of cinnamon, ‘My, my that sounds absolutely ingenious. You will have to show me more when we have time.’ Came the smoky voice with a fresh burst of cinnamon scent.

Hermione could only mentally nod her head as she was swooning from the scent of the other woman. But the scent was soon replaced by a cold feeling of dread running down Hermione’s spine like an icy finger. 

‘Bollocks, Hermione love, you need to break the connection!’ Came the panicked voice of the other. 

‘What is going on?’ Hermione mentally thought back with gritted teeth. 

‘Dementors!’ Was all the other voice shouted back in Hermione’s head. 

Hermione wasn’t sure what changed within her, all she knew was she could feel her Veela rise back to the surface, hissing and growling out at the possible threat to their mate. Hermione could feel Fleur’s panic as well as another’s presence through the bond. 

Embracing her Veela side, she started summoning up warm happy thoughts along with her love of Fleur and her other two mates. Focusing on the mind of the one with her throughout the duel. 

So caught up in her mental fight for her unknown Mate, Hermione never noticed when Fleur burst into the room and came to stand beside her, lending her own love and strength to Hermione. 

Hermione went through the wand motion without a wand in her hand and shouted, “Expecto Patronum,” just as the Tonks family burst into the room along with a frantic ‘Bella!’ echoed through the bond from the last soulmate in their bond. 

Andromeda and Theodora watched as two birds burst forth, one from Hermione and the other from Fleur. Hermione's bird was a huge figure with lightning-shaped tail feathers, glowing in a blue-white spectral light of a Patronus, Fleur’s bird was slightly smaller with what appeared to be a glowing spectral aura around it.

Surprisingly a third bird appeared, this one a bit smaller than Fleur’s patronus, with wavy moose-like antlers coming off its head. The three spectral bird Patroni flew around each other for a moment before flying into each other and disappearing with a loud pop like apparition. 

Hermione, who had channeled most of the power, swayed on her feet and Fleur was quick to catch her as she toppled over and her eyes rolled up into her head. Meanwhile, Andromeda, Theodora, and Nymphadora exchanged confused looks. 

“What in Merlin’s name was that?” Nymphadora exclaimed. Both Andromeda and Theodora just shrugged. 

***Meanwhile on a small island in the North Sea***

Bellatrix pushed her small frail body against the back wall of her cell, eyes wide as she stared in horror at the group of advancing Dementors. Somehow her emotions must have caught one of the Dementor’s senses and summoned the group like sharks to a feeding frenzy. 

Bellatrix could only hope her young mate was able to close the bond so as to not be affected. That was when Bellatrix felt it, that warm honeyed voice in her head. ‘No one bothers our mate while I have the power to stop it!’ Bellatrix blinked and let out a wild cackle as she felt the warmth and love filling her drawing the advancing Dementor’s close. 

Just before the Dementors would get into range to feed off her, Bellatrix flung her arms wide with a loud insane sounding cackle. Then 4 spectral bird-shaped Patroni burst forth from her chest to immediately attack and burn the Dementors apart. 

‘Thank you!’ Bellatrix thought back earnestly just before she too passed out due to being on the receiving end of the magic. 

As Fleur cuddled Hermione protectively, Andromeda and Theodora quickly sprang into action. First Theodora transfigured a chaise lounge. Fleur promptly laid Hermione on it over her own body without relinquishing her hold on the Gryffindor. While that was happening, Andromeda summoned a potion bag and started pulling out replenishing potions that Hermione might need. 

A groggy Hermione’s eyes started to flutter a few moments later as the youngest girl started to come to. Once her eyes regained their focus, she beamed up at Fleur who was still protectively cuddling with her.

Nymphadora in all her grace choice that moment to colourfully ask. “Merlin’s saggy ass! What was that?” 

“Nymphadora! You were raised better than to use such language.” Theodora snapped at Nymphadora, who had the decency to look sheepish. 

“Sorry ‘Mione” she added after a moment under her mother’s writhing glare. 

“Bollocks, bugger me! How bloody hard is it to say my name properly? It’s Her-mi-one, not Mione or any other silly nickname you or someone else came up with it. Got it Nymphadora?” A scathing and seething golden-eyed Hermione lit into Nymphadora, who desperately looked as if she wanted to take back the last few minutes.

Settling for vigorously nodding her head, Nymphadora held her hands out as if she was trying to placate a wild animal. Which sadly was not far from the truth. 

Fortunately, Fleur was able to distract Hermione with kisses along the younger girl’s neck and whispered soothing words in Veela into her ear. After a few moments of this, Hermione settled back down against Fleur. 

“Really Nymphadora, where did you learn such an uncouth nickname from?” Andromeda asked succulently. 

“Well the Weasley’s, Ron specifically, but have all of them use it at one time or another. I just assumed it was your preferred nickname. I am sorry Hermione.” 

Hermione nodded, accepting Nymphadora’s apology. “Just don’t let it happen again.” Was Hermione’s reply to which Nymphadora gave another vigorous nod.

Theodora cleared her throat to get everyone's attention. “We will see that it doesn’t happen again. Now while we were working with Fleur, we had a chance to go over what you discovered. Barty Crouch Jr. being around means nothing good will come from whatever he is up to. Now we will present this to those who can do the most good. Do not worry we will stop whatever he is up to here at Hogwarts. You can be sure of that, if it wouldn’t ruin my cover I would see to it myself for my Sister of course.” 

Hermione growled out and a hint of elongated incisors could be seen in her mouth before her mouth closed and she nodded. “I can respect that, as much as I want to be the one to make him pay, you have as much right as I do and I know it will be dealt with properly,” Hermione said with a nod as her tongue licked over her extended incisors. 

Andromeda watched Hermione carefully for a moment before pulling her wand and casting a quick Tempus charm. “Well, that just about wraps up our time for today. Keep at your exercises, both of you.” With a pointed look at Fleur and Hermione. 

Fleur and Hermione both nodded, Fleur helping Hermione to her feet when Theodora stopped the pair. 

“One more thing dears. As for the thing with the Patroni, I have an idea but need to do some research first. I will get back to the two of you as soon as I know for sure. It may be some time though, just to let you both know. I am not trying to hide anything but until I can be sure it’s best not to mention anything.” Theodora spoke with them in a calm sure voice before she let the pair leave. 

As Fleur and Hermione made their way back up to the castle, Fleur turned to Hermione. “What do you think that was all about?” 

Hermione just shrugged, “you mean the last part? What she said before we left? No idea, guess we will have to wait and see what she can find out.” The younger girl snuggled into Fleur as she finished replying. 

The pair continued to snuggle against each other on their walk back up to the castle. 

The next couple of weeks passed quickly, until one morning a few days before the task. 

Fleur and Hermione happened to be enjoying a lazy breakfast with their flock, when the doors to the great hall burst open and at least 10 to 20 witches and wizards all wearing the black and silver robes of the ICW indicible task force, akin to the Unspeakables from the British Department of Mysteries. But unlike the British Unspeakables, the Indicible’s were a mix of Auror and researcher combined into one unit. The head of the procession walked in just as the owls started their morning mail delivery and uncurled a copy of the Daily Prophet as marched up the space between the house tables toward the staff table, the heels of her boots clicking on the stone floor. 

She stopped before Dumbledore at the staff table. “Monsieur Dumbledore, Please recuse yourself and surrender.” 

Albus Dumbledore looked over his half-moon glasses at the Indicible’s as the group spread out around the staff table, wands drawn but not pointed at anyone. 

“And just why would I do such a thing, Miss?” Dumbledore calmly replied, although if one looked closely enough, such as a certain group of Veela currently were, they would see the normal twinkle in Dumbledore’s eye was no longer present. 

"Madame.. Madame Dupree, the head of the Indicibe task force as you very well know, or should know.” The woman replied, “Now I was trying to be respectful of your past but if you would rather we can do this right here and now.” Madame Dupree continued without missing a beat. “What will it be, Monsieur Dumbledore?” Madame Dupree asked with an arch of her deep red brow.

Albus Dumbledore gave the assembled witches and wizards of the Indicible task force before he looked out over the gathered students.”This is during the school year and I can not leave Hogwarts in other hands.” Was his reply, although it was obvious he was just trying to find a way out of this situation with his grandfatherly charm. 

Charm which had no visible effect on the stern looking tall redheaded Madame Dupree. 

Madame Dupree sighed softly. “That has already been seen to, Dumbledore. The ICW is extending an offer to Madame McGonagoll to fill in as interim Headmistress during the time you are recused. Unless you wish to have someone else, there happens to be a list. Now for the last time will you Albus Dumbledore voluntarily recuse yourself? And don’t bother trying to summon your Phoenix, he is being babysat in your office.”

Dumbledore tried once more to stall as he tried to figure out a way to get out of all this. “Very well, and might I inquire as to why I am being asked to recuse myself?”

Madame Dupree rolled her eyes, “Well if that is the way you want it, fine with me.” She commented as she pulled out a thick scroll from within her robes as she finished the few steps up to the outside edge of the staff table. 

“Albus Dumbledore, you are effective immediately to be placed on administrative leave. Pending the investigation of knowingly breaking article 19, subsection 42.21 of the ICW charter on the Triwizard Tournament and International cooperation between Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the Beauxbatons Academy and the Durmstrang Institute of Magic. The ICW will be conducting the investigation and has extended the interim Headmaster position to Madame McGonagall, if she decides not to take the position, one will be appointed by the ICW until the investigation is complete.” Madame Dupree reads from the scroll. before adding  
to the members of her task force, “Also take Monsieur Karkaroff into custody as well.” 

The great hall was silent as members of the Indicible Task Force took both Karkaroff and Dumbledore into custody. The whispers and murmurs only returned once Madame Dupree and her Indicible Task Force escorted the two men off in magical restraints. 

Hermione, who had opened her copy of the Daily Prophet, let out a gasp at the headline.

_**Double Murder at Hogwarts!** _

_The dead bodies of Bartemius Crouch Sr as well as the body of Bartemius Crouch Jr., a well known supporter of You-Know-Who and proud Death Eater, were both discovered yesterday just inside the Forbidden Forest that surrounds the Castle. The International Confederation of Wizards, has dispatched a squad of their famed Indicible Task Force to investigate the matter and what may be going on at Hogwarts. Which is hosting the Triwizard Tournament this year.  
Crouch Senior appears to have been killed with _Avada Kedavra_ , the killing curse; while Crouch jr seems to have died of complete blood loss, although no blood was found at the scene and the body has only had a pair of tiny punctures on its neck; leaving the Auror department completely baffled as to what happened.  
*Story continued on Page 3  
For more about the ICW or the Triwizard Tournament see page 9 and 10 respectfully._

Hermione jumped when a hand slammed down on the table in front of her. Hermione let her eyes follow the hand up till she found the angry red face of Ronald Weasley with Harry Potter beside him. Ron did not give Hermione a chance to say anything.

“How could you? That was the great Albus Dumbledore. Why would you do something like that you mudblood dyke freak!” Ron’s voice carried over the whole great room, causing the Flock to stand up protectively around Hermione. 

Then the shrill voice of Professor McGonagall broke through, who was on her way to check on her cubs. “Mr Weasley what do you think you are doing?”

The stern professor looked over the rim of her glasses at Ronald. “I am waiting Mr Weasley”

Ronald turned an even deeper shade of red at this and sputtered before managing to wave his finger in Hermione’s direction. 

“She had something to do with what happened to Dumbledore, everyone knows it.” Ronald all but screamed out. 

Before anyone else could react, a rich cultured voice with a french accent, from behind Ronald asked. “I would be most interested to find out what proof you might have that she was involved, Mr Weasley was it?”

Ronald, already lost to his temper, didn’t even think before spinning around and yelling out harshly. “Who in Merlin’s name are you? This is Hogwarts business.” 

Ronald then got a good look at who he yelled at, standing before him was a tall, elegant woman with long wavy deep red hair, with a badge clipped to the breast of her robes. This badge caused Ronald to pale. turn bright red and purple all at the same time.

The woman smirked as she leaned on her cane. “That would be Monique Beuachamp from the International Auror Division of the ICW. Now that we have that out of the way, what could cause you to make a vile accusation against a fellow student, one of your own house it seems?” came the woman’s cultural reply. 

Ronald stood there sputtering and looked around for support, even Harry had seemed to think better of his own knee jerk reaction and was being escorted back to his seat. 

“She is a dyke freak.. she’s not normal and she needs to be removed before she corrupts the normal girls.” Ronald managed to stammer out as he blushed heavily.

The foriegn Auror gave a soft hmm. “And it had nothing to do with the fact that she turned you down would it young boy?” Monique replied in a cutting manner. 

Professor McGonagall placed her hand one Ronald’s shoulder to keep from making matters worse. “Whatever the reason, Mr Weasley, 50 points from Gryffindor for your behavior and two weeks detention, starting today.”

Ronald could only gap, like a fish, at his head of house and wince as her claw-like hand dug into his shoulder. 

Madame Beauchamp nodded and turned toward Hermione. “And you Mademoiselle, would you wish any charges pressed against him?”

Hermione shook her head as she thought to herself, ‘Beauchamp, I wonder if she is related to my mother in any way?’ while lowering her barriers slightly. 

Hermione wasn’t surprised one bit when she heard back in her mind. ‘And who was your mother young fledgling?’ came the cultural voice of Monique in her mind. 

Hermione couldn’t help the smile that came to her face, ‘Isabella Beauchamp-Delacour’ she replied with a slight smirk in her mental voice. 

Monique nodded before adding mentally to Hermione. ‘So you are Monique’s Fledgling, I am your Great Aunt, then we will have to catch up more later. by the way nice shields.’

Hermione blushed slightly as she clung to Fleur, watching as Madame Beauchamp left to speak with Professor McGonagall and the other Professors. 

The next couple days were hard on Hermione, somehow both Ron and Harry had determined this was all her fault and had all but turned the house against her. Never had she been more thankful for the Flock who stayed loyal to her and had taken to escorting her everywhere. That had turned out to be a good thing as the flock had intercepted a few nasty pranks and hexes sent towards Hermione. Thankfully the Flock did not retaliate in any way, at least none that Hermione knew about.

Finally the day of the last task arrived, and with it the families of the contestants. Hermione found herself surrounded by the flock constantly. Breakfast found her being escorted by the flock toward the Beuabaton’s carriage. There she was reintroduced to Gabrielle and Apolline Delacour along with another tall breathtaking blond Veela, she was introduced to Moxine Delacour, Apolline’s Spouse and Fleur and Gabrielle’s other parent. 

Moxine took one look at Hermione and then looked at Fleur before gushing to Apolline. 

“ **Ohh Merci, they bonded! Our baby has a bond mate now.. this is cause for a celebration when we get back to France!** ” 

Apolline gave Moxine a patient loving smile. “ **You must forgive her at times, Darling we already discussed this; No celebrations until they are able to free their bondmates.** ”

Apolline turned toward the younger Alpha’s. “ **  
And any progress on that end?** ”

At Hermione’s and Fleur’s blushes, Apolline got a wicked smirk on her face. Hermione and Fleur filled Apolline in on the latest developments as the younger pair took the family on a tour of the Hogwarts grounds. 

Neither noticed Apolline turning pale when they described the Patroni indecent 

“ **In the end, I was able to direct Patroni to wherever Bellatrix was at and protect her. Theodora said she would look into what happened and let us know as soon as she had more details.** ” Hermione finished moments later. 

That seemed to give a pale, in shock Apolline pause as she looked at Hermione. “ **Theodora and Andromeda witnessed this you say? I will have to speak with her, but this is your day my little eagle. So them what the French are made of!** ” Apolline finished with a knowing glint in her eye.. 

Moxine placed her hand lovingly on Apolline’s shoulder. “ **Darling, I know that look, what did their explanation bring to mind for you?**

Apolline considered for a moment before shaking her head, “ **Not here, little ones can you explain this in more detail to us?** ” She asked of Fleur and Hermione. Hermione and Fleur to lead the other two off to a private area to speak. 

Finding an abandoned classroom, Fleur and Hermione went into a more detailed explanation of the various training sessions and what had happened in the last one..

In the end, Apolline understood and nodded throughout the explanation. Aplolline’s questions and possible doubts seemed to change in an instant when Theodora and Andromeda spoke with Apolline during the trip to show Fleur’s family the village of Hogsmeade. Neither Fleur nor Hermione was able to catch what they spoke about with the older couple, but suddenly Apolline and Moxine were all smiles, and Hermione and Fleur both felt the invisible tension drain away. All in all it turned out to be a wonderful day spent with Fleur’s family.

Then it was dusk and time for the third task to start. Ludo Bagman gathered the four champions near the entrance of the maze that had been grown in the Quidditch pitch. 

Before her could pull Fleur away, Hermione pulled her into a deep passionate kiss and whispered. “I do not care what happens in there. Come back to me and keep Harry safe if at all possible.”

Fleur let out a breathless “Oui!” 

Hermione smiled and allowed Fleur to be corralled with the other champions. While she moved back to sit with the flock, She took a moment to look over the Judges table. Dumbledore,Karkaroff, and Crouch had all been replaced by stand-in judges. Standing in for Dumbledore was Professor McGonagall, now Interim HeadMistress with ‘Theodore Tonks’ beside her. Next to them was Madame Maxime, and on Maxime's other side was a stern looking older male with a scowl on his face, who appeared to be filling in for Karkaroff. Finally it appeared that Percy had been relieved for this final task and a toad-like woman dressed in pink was standing in for Mr. Crouch.

For the spectator’s the third task was as boring as the second task. Hermione did her best to ignore the scowls and glares from the Weasley’s, specifically Ron and Molly Weasley, who apparently was here as Harry’s family. 

Suddenly red sparks went up over the maze and a few moments later, both Viktor Krum and Cedric Diggory were carried out and over to the medical tent Madam Pomfrey had set up. Both were smolding with smoke wafting off their clothes and what appeared to be numerous scratches on their faces and exposed skin. 

Hermione was biting her lip with concern as she overheard Pomfrey’s report to Amos.

“Blast-ended Skwerts ... knocked the competitors into the razor hedges... will be fine in no time.. no serious damage thankfully.”

Hermione was able to make out most of what Madam Pomfrey said but not all of it. 

Another hour had nearly passed when both Fleur and Harry appeared at the Maze entrance. The pair tumbled from the rough Portkey landing, but Fleur quickly popped up with her wand in hand scanning the area and yelled at Harry. “Do not touch the cup again!” 

Harry sheepishly backed away from the cup as members of the ICW Indicible Task Force and the International Auror Task force stormed the pair to get statements and secure the cup. 

Harry cried out, “Voldemort is back!” which caused the witch in pink to scoff. 

“Hem Hem, obviously the boy is having a break-down. Who-know-who is long dead, I think the tournament was too much for the poor boy.“  
She said, shaking her head sadly. 

Fleur who had been speaking with Auror Beuachamp went to speak up but the Auror stopped her. 

“Madam Umbridge last I was aware, you were a desk jockey, brown nosing your way up the British ministry ranks, did that change and you became a member of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement?” Auror Beuachamp asked sweetly with faux concern. 

“Now you see here hussy! I am here as Minister Fudge’s personal representative. Do you know who I am? I am the Senior Under Secretary to the Minister himself!” Umbridge all but spat back.

Auror Beuachamp rolled her eyes and turned to some of her subordinates. “Kindly escort Madam Umbridge out of here. This will remain an ICW investigation. Now get out of here before I arrest you for interfering in an Auror investigation.” Auror Beauchamp answered with cutting words. 

It was amusing to see Umbridge turn pinker than her wardrobe before huffing and turning away. “You just wait till Cornelius hears about this!”She huffed out through gritted teeth as she waddled away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be some confusion on the ICW parts.
> 
> The indicible Task Force is akin to unspeakable department. While the International Auror Division of the ICW is in my mind akin to interpol but for magicals


End file.
